
' 



i I 






Mr. Lincoln's First Public Addr 



THE FOREST BOY: 

A SKETCH OF THE 

LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

By Z. A. MUDGE, 

HUNTINGDON PORTRAYED," "THE CHRI 
ETC., ETC. 

OUR ILLUSTRATION 




New Vo3 
PUBLISHED BY CAR/LfON & PORTER, 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, ill MULl;]"UUY STEF.KT. 












fatend according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, 

BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

in the UctH's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New-York. 



b 




PREFACE 



We have attempted in this volume a sketch 
of the life of Abraham Lincoln, adapted to 
young persons. None, so far as we know, of 
the biographies written since his death have 
had this special object in view. 

We have given the facts in such detail that 
his general history may be understood, and 
have aimed so to group them together that his 
true picture may be seen from several points of 
observation. To do this we have made the 
chapters somewhat topical, btit not to an extent 
to interrupt essentially the chronological order. 

"We have studied to bring out, for an example 
and inspiration to the young, that moral integ- 
rity and true goodness which were so promi- 
nent in Mr. Lincoln's character. We hope, 
therefore, that our book will be found worthy 



t; Preface. 

to be invited into the Sabbath-schools and 
Christian families of our country. 

Much of the material here presented was 
found afloat in a fragmentary form, but derived, 
we are assured, from authentic sources. 

We are indebted to the biography of Mr. 
Lincoln, by the Hon. J. H. Barrett, for many 
facta of his early life; and to letters published 
in "The Independent," by Mr. Carpenter, 
the artist, for sprightly illustrations of his later 
years. 

We also acknowledge our indebtedness for 
many tact- to the unrivaled Life of Lincoln by 

Db. Bollard. 

Credit due to other sources is given in the 
Course of the narrative. 

We commend T»ur unpretending volume to 
the attention of the young, from a deep convic- 
tion that the more they study the history of our 
late President, the more his character will 
interest and profit them. Z. A. M. 

Qutjn i M - tombr, 1866. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

IE PIONEERJ 



The Valley of the Shenandoah — The Grandfather of Abraham 
Lincoln — The Journey to Kentucky — Indian Hostility — Dan- 
iel Boone's Fight — Abraham's Grandfather shot by the Indians 
— His Widow and the little Thomas Lincoln Page 15 

CHAPTER II. 

LITTLE ABRAHAM. 

Nolin Creek — The Log-cabin and New Home — Abraham's 
Mother — His Father — His Brother and Sister — Another Log- 
cabin Home — The Play-ground — The Father's Stories — The 
Mother's Instructions — Abraham's Wise Opinions 22 

CHAPTER III. 

A NEW HOME. 

Fondness for Moving — Hatred of Slavery — The Old Home 
sold — Singular Pay — Hunting after a new Location — Bad Luck 
on the River — A Place found — A touching Incident on leaving 
the Old Home— The Journey — The New Cabin : its Rooms and 
Furniture — The Mill — Planting and Hunting 29 

CHAPTER IV. 
SCHOOLS AND BOOKS. 

Abraham's first Teacher — Six Months in School — Reading 
the Bible in the Family — Learning to "Cypher" — How Abra- 
ham made rapid Improvement — First School Books — "Esop's 
Fables"— Abraham's Lucky Shot at a Turkey — Other Good 



8 COX T E N I S. 

Books — Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress" — Weem9's "Life of 
Washington" — "Life of Henry Clay " — Abraham's Dress at 
this Time Page 36 

CHAPTER V. 

THE GREAT BEREAVEMENT. 

The Death of Abraham's Mother — Her Comfort in Sickness, 
and her humble Burial — The Itinerant Preachers — Elder El- 
kins — Abraham's first Letter — The Arrival of Elkins — The 
Great Gathering — The Funeral Sermon — Abraham's Love for 
Sarah— Their new Mother — Sarah's Death 43 

CHAPTER VI. 

EARLY MANLINESS. 

• 

Abraham's Ambition — Letter Writing — "Ramsay's Life of 
Washington " — The Accident — Manly Conduct of Abraham — 
Saving the Life of a Drunkard — First Voyage down the Missis- 
sippi — The First Dollar— Accident at the Mill — Abraham a 
Ferryman — Second Trip down the Mississippi — Midnight At- 
tack by Negroes— Good Habits 52 

CHAPTER VII. 

B E G I N N I X G A X E W. 

A new Home desired — Removal to Hlinois — The Journey — 
Abraham's Energy — Abraham helps build a Log-cabin — Its 
Historical Character— Rail-splitting and Plowing— Abraham and 
the Traveler— Abraham's Father moves again — His Death. . 65 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ENERGY AND HONESTY. 

Abraham's Dress and Rough Appearance — Social Qualities 
—Willingness to Work — The way he obtained new Pants — 
Another Voyage to New Orleans — Abraham in a Store — Anec- 
dotes of his Honesty — Gets the name of " Honest Abe" — A 
Boaster humbled — "The Clary's Grove Boys" — Abraham 
conquers their Champion 71 



Contents. 9 

chapter ix. 

A STEP HIGHER. 

Abraham's desire to learn — " Conquers " a Grammar — Ambi- 
tioL — Debating Clubs and "Practicing Polemics" — Abraham's 
first Public Speech: its great Success — Anecdote — Study- 
ing and rocking the Cradle — Confidence in his sound Judg- 
ment Page 80 

CHAPTER X. 

EARLY PUBLIC HONORS. 

Black Hawk "War— Mr. Lincoln enlists — Anecdote of his 
Election as Captain — Long Marches — The Volunteers return 
Home — Captain Lincoln re-enlists twice — Black Hawk's Defeat 

— Captain Lincoln's Popularity with his Men — His Journey 
Home — His humorous allusion to his War Experience — At- 
tempts Trading, and fails — His "National Debt" — Becomes 
Postmaster — Anecdote — Honest Settlement of his Accounts — 
Surveyor 87 

CHAPTER XL 

WINNING HIS WAT. 

Compliments — Lincoln and the College Boys — Getting out 
of Difficulty — His first Political Canvass — Elected to the State 
Legislature — Begins to study Law— Walks to the State Capital 

— First Experience as Legislator — Walks Home — His second 
Canvass — Public Debate — Anecdote — His Antislavery Record 
— " The Long Nine " — Lincoln's Position 96 

CHAPTER XII. 

"RIDING THE CIRCUIT." 

Lincoln a Lawyer — Removes to Springfield — Again in the 
Legislature — The Leader of his Party — Anecdote — Putting 
down a troublesome Member — Becomes the Advocate of the 
Poor and Oppressed — Anecdotes — His Conscientiousness as <■ 
Lawyer — Popularity on "The Circuit"— The two Colts — An 
ingenious Statement 106 



10 Context s. 



chapter XIII. 

THE RESCUE. 

Young Armstrong : accused of Murder — Public Excitement — 
Critical Condition of the Accused — Mr. Lincoln offers his 
Services — The Trial — The Prisoner and his poor Mother — Mr. 
Lincoln's Defense and Appeal — The Decision — Touching Scene 
after the Acquittal . Page 114 

CHAPTER XIV. 

FURTHER INCIDENTS OF "THE CIRCUIT." 

A Pig in Distress — " Only a Pig " — Demands of Conscience 

— The Pig rescued — Philosophizing — Remembers the Poor 
among his Acquaintance — Pity for an unfortunate Client — The 
Case of the poor Widow — The Colored Boy saved from Slaver/ 
— Takes unpopular Cases 122 

CHAPTER XV. 

AT HIS OWN HOME. 

Marriage of Mr. Lincoln — Interesting Letters — His Children 

— Affection for his Children — Anecdotes — Absent-mindedness 

— Mr. Lincoln "surprised" — Studies Geometry — An Inven- 
tion — A Lecture on Inventions — Knowledge of the Bible — Mr. 
Lincoln's Law Partner's Pen-picture of him 130 

CHAPTER XVI. 
IN CONGRESS. 
Generous Conduct — Friendship for Henry Clay — Moral 
Courage — Anecdotes — Elected to Congress — Speeches — Anec- 
dote of his Independence — Antislavery Record — Short Tour 
in New England — Returns to Illinois and canvasses for General 
Taylor— Applies for Office, and laughs at his Failure 143 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A GREAT CONTEST COMMENCED. 

Mr. Lincoln's temperate Habits not spoiled at Washington — 
An Illustration — A Pro-slavery Law — Mr. Lincoln's Opposi- 
tion to it — Lincoln and Douglas — Their first Public Debate — 



Contents. 11 

Mr. Lincoln joins the Kepublican Party — Great Speech in its 
behalf — Becomes its Western Leader — Intimations of Political 
Advancement Page 151 

CHAPTER XVHI. 

A TRIUMPH ACHIEVED. 

" Popular Sovereignty " — Mr. Lincoln's intense Resentment 
of its Claims — Republican Candidate for the United States 
Senate — Great Debate with Judge Douglas begun — The Oppo- 
nents' kind Words for each other — Douglas flinches from the 
Debate — Accepts a qualified Challenge — The Contest — Pen- 
portraits of the Debaters by Newspaper Reporters — The Re- 
sults 160 

CHAPTER XIX. 
THE WHITE HOUSE IN PROSPECT. 

Slavery — The Rising against it of the Public Voice — Mr. 
Lincoln named as a Presidential Candidate — Political Nick- 
names — "The Rail-splitter " — Visits Kansas — Going East — 
At New York — Crude Appearance — Speech in Cooper Institute 

— Its wonderful Success — Glances at New York — Anecdote — 

— Speeches in Connecticut — Visits Harvard College — Anec- 
dotes 172 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. 

Nominations for President — The Chicago Convention — Mr. 
Lincoln nominated, and "no Bargains" — His Reception of the 
News — Visit of the Committee from the Convention — Rush of 
Visitors — Anecdotes — The rustic young Men — The honest old 
Lady 184 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE WHITE HOUSE ENTERED. 

Mr. Linooln elected President — His conflicting Feelings — The 
Joy of the loyal People, and Resentment of the Slaveholders — 
His Religious Feelings — Visits Chicago — Anecdotes — The little 



12 Contents. 

Patriot— The little Girls — Leaves Springfield for Washington — 
Journey — Plots against his Life — Escape, and Arrival at Wash- 
ington — Inaugural — Oath — White House Page 19 9 

CHAPTER XXH. 

THE NATION'S "GREAT TROUBLE." 

The Great Rebellion commenced — The Forts seized — Mr. 
Lincoln's Perplexities — He refuses to begin the War — Fort 
Sumter taken — The loyal People aroused — Judge Douglas comes 
to Mr. Lincoln's Aid — Hon. George Bancroft on the Uprising of 
the People 211 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

LOG-CABIN SIMPLICITY AT THE -WHITE HOUSE. 

Mr. John Hank's first Visit at the White House — Professor 
Goldwin Smith and Mr. Lincoln — Mr. Carpenter's first Inter- 
view — Mr. Lincoln at the Iron Fence — Fred. Douglass at the 
White House — A black Embassador as good as a "ginger-col- 
ored one " — Negro Visitors — The little Girls — " It's so cold " 
— The Irish Boy — Insults resented — An old Friend 223 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

TENDERNESS AND SYMPATHY. 

The President's keen Sympathies — The condemned Soldier 
Boy reprieved — The dying Soldier's Blessing — The poor Wash- 
er-woman's Son — The Mother and her Child — A Husband par- 
doned — The President counting Greenbacks — The Widow's 
three Sons — " Now I have one and you one " — The Children's 
Petition — Stanton and Lincoln — The little Kitten — The Pres- 
ident in the Hospitals 242 

CHAPTER XXV. 

PLEASANT HUMORS. 

Mr. Lincoln's "Jokes" — Their Purpose — A Relief to an 
overburdened Heart — Sadness and Pleasantry — A touching 
Incident — " No Time for Stories " — The Emancipation Procla- 
mation — With what Feelings sent forth — The Nasby Papers 
— The Peace Commissioners — "Root, Hog, or die" — "Let 



Contents. 13 

'em wriggle" — "Who ranks?"— The Young German Lieu- 
tenant — An important Testimony — Mr. Lincoln's Stories never 
coarse Page 256 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 

Early religious Tendencies — Mr. Lincoln's Conversion — "I 
do love Jesus" — A serious Mistake — The important Question: 
"Are we on God's Side?" — The President's Love for the Bible 

— Giving Freedom to the Slaves — His Anxiety concerning the 
Measure — "Promised God I would do it" — "Prayer and 
Praise " — " Give God the Glory" — "Duty "—An unusual 
Scene in the East Room 269 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE WHITE HOUSE HOME. 

The White House not barred — Early Rising — How Mr. Lin- 
coln's early Hours were spent — In the Family Circle — Little 
"Tad" — "I'll keep my part of the Bargain" — Tad's White 
House Guard — Willie — His Death — Mr. Lincoln's Mourning, 
and how he was comforted 280 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE RAINBOW OF PEACE. 

Mr. Lincoln re-elected President — The Soldiers for him — 
Made " von Veteran " — His Modesty — The Inaugural Address 

— A remarkable Passage — The great Success of the Army and 
Navy — The Heroes: Banks, Butler, Farragut, Thomas, Sherman, 
and Grant — The President at City Point — The little Kitten — 
The Fall of Richmond — Mr. Lincoln enters the City — The Joy 
of the Negroes — Last Interview with Secretary Seward — "Now 
for a Day of Thanksgiving " 290 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE DARK CLOUD OFSORROW. 

Congratulations — The good Spirits and Gratitude of the 
President — His generous Feelings toward the South — Mrs. 
Lincoln's Account of her Husband's last Days — His Attendance 



1-i Contents. 

upon the Theater — The Engagement to attend Ford's Theater 
— Reluctance to go when the Hour arrived — The Escape of 
General Grant — Arrival of the President and Party at the Thea- 
ter— The Assassin— The fatal Deed — The Murderer's Death — 
The Attack upon Mr. Seward — How he learned that the Presi- 
dent was dead — The great Mourning Page 300 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE BURIAL — BENEDICTIONS — FAREWELL. 

The Remains of Mr. Lincoln at Baltimore — Harrishurgh — 
Philadelphia — The City moved at its Coming— At New York 
City — Its Business suspended — Immense Procession, and Fifteen 
Thousand Soldiers — From Albany to Buffalo — The Honors at 
the West — The Resting-place at Oak Ridge Cemetery — The 
Mourning of the Freedmen — " Massa Sam's Dead" — The News 
of the Assassination at Montreal, London, Paris, and through- 
out "Europe — The Universal Grief — The Lesson taught — 
Farewell / 311 



illustrations. 



Mr. Lincoln's Fikst Public Address 2 

Young Lincoln at his Mother's Grave 48 

Dragging the Wagon 135 

Viewing Carpenter at Work on the Picture 230 



THE 



FOREST BOY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PIONEERS. 

The beautiful valley of the Shenandoah, in 
Virginia, has recently been desolated by war. 
Here Sheridan gave Early the terrible blows 
which sent his army, broken and dismayed, back 
to their comrades behind their intrenchments 
of Richmond. 

Almost one hundred years before this time, 
in 1780, there was living in this valley a family 
whose history the loyal people of the United 
States will always delight to study. It con- 
sisted of father, mother, three sons, and two 
daughters. The valley at this period was but 
thinly inhabited, there being only a few towns, 



16 The Forest Boy. 

and those far apart; while the Indian still 
pitched his wigwam on its sunny slopes, and 
the wild beasts roamed the forests. Yet this 
family caught the spirit of emigration. Daniel 
Boone, the famous hunter of those times, had 
taken a journey from his home in South Caro- 
lina to "The country of Kentucky," and re- 
turned with glowing accounts of its fertility 
and beauty. " The Western excitement " 
spread along the sea-shore to Virginia, and 
hundreds of families followed Boone in his new 
enterprise. The long journey, the great pri- 
vations which it required, and even the dan- 
gers of the wilderness into which they went, 
afforded an excitement which they loved. 

Such were the feelings of the family of whom 
we have just spoken. Its head was Abraham 
Lincoln, grandfather of the President. His 
youngest child, at this time about two years 
old, was Thomas, who became the father of 
Abraham, the Deliverer of his country. 

When this pioneer family broke up their 
home in the Shenandoah, and turned away 



The Forest Boy. 17 

from the familiar scenes of their youth and the 
graves of their fathers, they did not, it must be 
remembered, step into the cars to be whirled, 
in a few hours, to their chosen encampment. 
A part of their journey lay through an almost 
unbroken wilderness, where the feet of white 
men had seldom ventured, and where the sav- 
age Indian still roamed. One rudely con- 
structed wagon, or the backs of a few horses, 
sufficed to carry the emigrants and their scanty 
supply of goods. The trusty rifle, and perhaps 
the berries by the wayside, supplied the crav- 
ings of hunger ; the pure stream gave them 
drink, and the branches of the trees afforded 
them shelter at mid-day and at night. 

Mr. Lincoln did not end his weary journey 
until he had passed nearly through Kentucky 
to the valley of the Ohio River. He selected a 
spot upon which nature had bestowed her rich- 
est gifts : the land was fertile, the game abund- 
ant, the scenery beautiful, and everything 
seemed to say, God is here ! Already the set- 
tlers from Virginia and the Carol in as began to 



18 The Forest Boy. 

meet those who came down the Ohio from the 
North and East. 

These lands were the hunting-grounds of the 
Indians ; their fathers had followed the deer 
through these forests, and paddled their canoes 
upon these rivers, and the traces of their wig- 
wams and their graves, for many generations, 
were here. It is not strange, therefore, that 
they claimed them, and looked with no friendly 
eyes upon the pale-faced strangers. They in- 
formed Daniel Boone in a very savage way that 
they did not bid him welcome : they made war 
upon all his company. 

Just after Mr. Lincoln had erected his cabin, 
a large number of Indian warriors encamped 
not far from him. Daniel Boone assembled all 
the men of the scattered settlements of the 
country and gave them battle. Boone was 
defeated, many of his men killed, and his own 
son left wounded and dying in his arms. In- 
spired by a father's love, he plunged into the 
river near which the battle was fought, and 
swam with him to the opposite side, the Indians 



The Forest Boy. 19 

following close behind. When he reached the 
shore his boy was dead, and the father was 
obliged to leave his body in the hands of the 
savages to save his own life. 

But the red man did not long appear in open 
fight. The whites increased in number, and 
were too skillful in their mode of warfare for 
the poor ignorant savages, who learned, that 
their safer way was to hide in the bushes, or 
skulk behind trees, and pounce upon their foe 
as the tiger springs upon its unsuspecting prey. 
They came upon the settlers when they were 
not watching, killed the men, and often carried 
off the helpless women and children, after hav- 
ing burned their cabins. 

About four years from the time Mr. Lincoln 
came to Kentucky, he was one day a short dis- 
tance from his home chopping down trees. 
While he was thus busy, thinking, perhaps, of 
his children, and how he might better provide 
for their comfort, he did not know that the 
eyes of bloody savages, peering out from their 

hiding-places, were watching him. In a fatal 
2 



20 The Forest Boy. 

moment he set Lis loaded gun, which the pio- 
neers ever kept near them, against a tree, and, 
stepping a few rods away, lifted his ax to fell 
a tree. At the instant the deadly arrow pierced 
his body, and he dropped dead. His corpse 
was found at the foot of the tree, the ax lying 
beside it, and his gun where it was left. 

It was a sad and gloomy day in the cabin of 
these pioneers when they laid the head of the 
family away in the grave, and thought that the 
same bloody men who had killed him were 
watching for their lives. But, though sorrow- 
ful, they were strong and brave ; their women 
had the courage of men, and the children the 
stout hearts of older persons. 

Soon after this Mrs. Lincoln took the chil- 
dren and went a little further east from the 
Ohio, seeking, perhaps, the neighborhood of 
friends, or thinking that the savages would not 
attack her away from their favorite hunting 
grounds. 

Little Thomas was now only six years old. 
The rough journey, the rude new home, and 



The Forest Boy. 21 

the heavy bereavement, were a severe school 
for his tender age; and when only six more 
years had passed away he was obliged to leave 
his mother's cabin, and seek his living by labor 
among strangers. He grew up an ignorant, 
but not an idle and wicked man. He never 
learned to read, and he wrote only his own 
name, and that he had been taught to copy 
from the writing of another person, as boys 
copy pictures or trace maps ; he did not even 
know the letters of which it was composed. 
But Thomas Lincoln had a strong hand and an 
honest heart. People loved the boy, and he 
found friends and work. 



22 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER II. 

LITTLE ABRAHAM. 

Thomas Lincoln was twenty-eight years old 
when lie married Nancy Hanks. This was in 
1806. He had erected a log-cabin to receive 
his bride. It was such a house as his own 
hands could build in a few days with the aid of 
an ax only. It was situated by a little stream 
called Nolin Creek, in what is now Larue 
County, Kentucky. Heavy timber covered 
about two thirds of the land around them. 
This was the fertile land which the emigrants 
cleared for cultivation, the rest being open and 
barren, and either quite level, or swelling into 
mounds and hills. From the top of one of these 
hills, now called the "Blue Ball," the stream 
running by Mr. Lincoln's cabin door could be 
followed by the eye, in a fair day, as it curved 
around the hills and shot across the plains, 



The Forest Boy. 23 

growing wider and deeper, until it emptied into 
the Ohio River, twenty miles distant. In the 
breezes, and from the trees, came a spirit of 
freedom and peace to the happy couple. The 
grandeur and beauty of nature about them 
spoke of God in a voice both clear and elevat- 
ing. Only man was vile, for as the savages 
disappeared the white men came with their 
slaves. But Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, 
though poor, did not wish to become rich by 
the unrewarded toil of others. 

Mrs. Lincoln had come, in childhood, with 
the emigrants from Virginia. She was from 
her youth a member of the Baptist Church, but 
her husband did not become a member until 
after their marriage, and was won to Christ, it 
may be, by her pious example. 

Mr. Lincoln was a man of average height, 
broad-chested, and well built. He was able 
and willing to work, but ready to spend. 
Good-natured himself, he did not suspect others 
o'f ill will, even when he had good grounds of 
distrust. He took the world too easy to 



24 The Forest Boy. 

thrive, and was quite content to be what he 
was, a man of honest poverty. 

Mrs. Lincoln was one of those remarkable 
women whom generations to come will delight 
to honor. She was of moderate height, slightly- 
made, and of a sad, pale countenance. She 
was gentle and amiable, seeking the friendship 
and love of others. To her other gifts was 
added a mind of the first order. We shall see 
with what reason her son, long after her depart- 
ure to be with Christ, called her his " angel 
mother." She was too frail a flower for expo- 
sure to the rude winds of pioneer life ; a gem of 
great purity amid rough surroundings, where, 
indeed, such gems are often found. 1 . She could 
read, and she well improved the few books with 
which she was favored. 

Thomas and Nancy had three children : 
Sarah, the first-born, Abraham, and Thomas. 
The latter died in infancy. Abraham was born, 
in the little log-cabin of which we have spoken, 
on the 12th of February, 1809. Such was the 
birthplace and Buch the parents «>i' Abraham 



The Forest Boy. 25 

Lincoln, whose name is now known throughout 
the world. Abraham was about two years old 
when his father moved from the log-cabin on 
Nolin Creek to one a little further east, three 
miles from what is now Hodgenville. It was not 
much expense or trouble to build a cabin, and so 
his father seems to have moved for apparently 
slight reasons, not having occasion to account 
the removal of the furniture a great item. 

In this new home Abraham lived until he 
was seven years of age. It still stands, and 
has been frequently seen in the pictures as it 
now appears. This Lincoln cabin is plainly 
much decayed ; but if we imagine the front to 
be tight, the fence perhaps away entirely, we 
shall see the humble home of Abraham Lincoln 
nearly the same as when he lived in it. 

"We cannot think that Abraham and his sister 
Sarah were able to carry on their childhood's 
sports within doors ; but their playground was 
ample. The tall trees of the surrounding for- 
ests which overshadowed the soil prevented the 
growth of underbrush or tangled vines. Na- 



26 The Forest Boy. 

ture's carpet of green and brown was spread for 
their feet. There were no neighbors with sensi- 
tive ears to chide their hearty shout or merry 
laugh. Abraham could dam the little streams, 
and form mimic waterfalls ; while Sarah on the 
hillside was making evergreen wreaths for her 
own hat, or leafy crowns for her brother's 
brow. If they chose the more invigorating 
amusement of "hide and seek," what grand 
hiding-places were the tree trunks, and what a 
run they might have without danger of bolting 
against a table or pitching over a chair ! 

Though the children could not play in-doors, 
they could, and did, when not able or not in- 
clined to go out, do something better. At this 
time they were not old enough to help their 
mother in the household labor. It is said that 
there were two ways in which their parents 
delighted to interest and instruct them at the 
fireside. The first and most important was the 
reading by the mother, who had a pleasant way 
of making remarks, and of exciting talk con- 
cerning that which was read. The father told 



The Forest Boy. 27 

thern stories of the early settlers of Virginia 
and Kentucky, and the incidents, often repeated 
in his mother's cabin, of the long journey to 
the West. He had his tale, too, of Indian 
cruelties, which aroused the ardent spirit of 
Abraham. Sarah was better suited with the 
accounts of autumn feasts among neighbors, 
and of their winter merry-making. Mr. Lin- 
coln told a story well, and he was fully re- 
warded when he saw the happy countenances 
of Sarah and Abraham, as they sat on their 
little stools at his feet, listening with sparkling 
eyes. Mrs. Lincoln's amusement of the chil- 
dren was accompanied by a more valuable 
instruction, and even her husband greatly prof- 
ited by her pleasant words. At this time there 
were only two books, so far as we can learn, in 
the Lincoln cabin, the Bible and Catechism. 
From these precious truths were taught. The 
word of God became more valuable to Abra- 
ham than the highest honors or the greatest 
treasures. Sitting at his mother's feet, he list- 
ened to those Bible stories which have such 



28 The Forest Boy. 

wonderful power to interest and instruct, and 
of which the good never tire. Even at this 
early age he had a keen, inquiring mind, and 
asked many questions concerning Joseph, Mo- 
ses, Samuel, David, and other famous men, 
which his mother took great pleasure in an- 
swering. When he was alone with Sarah he 
had his wise opinions to offer concerning what 
his mother had read. These sayings, though 
childish, were little sparks from the same glow- 
ing mind which so amused and instructed 
others in later years. 



The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER III. 

A NEW HOME. 

In 1816, when Abraham was in his eighth year, 
his father began to think of a new home. He 
seemed to like moving ; and the excitement at- 
tending a new situation, different scenes, and 
untried difficulties, was the stimulus to activity 
in which he delighted. Things were uninterest- 
ing to pioneers after they became familiar ; at 
least this appears to have been the case with 
Mr. Lincoln. We do not think his thoughtful, 
frail wife felt just so, yet she possessed a heroic 
as well as loving spirit, and where her dear ones 
went she followed with a calm trust in the God 
of providence. 

Mr. Lincoln could readily find some excuse 
for his desire to push on further West. The 
titles to lands in Kentucky were much disputed 
at this time. Old settlers were sometimes 



30 The Forest Boy. 

obliged to give up their homes and improved 
lands to new claimants, because the records of 
the courts had not been carefully kept. Daniel 
Boone, whose right to whatever land in Ken- 
tucky he could reasonably desire must have been 
as good as any claim could be, except that of 
the Indians, was dispossessed of nearly all his 
estate by later comers. Mr. Lincoln hoped that 
further west his home would be more secure. 

He thought, too, of the evils of slavery, which 
were spreading over this new country, and did 
not wish his children to grow up under its influ- 
ence. Yet his son never thought that this was a 
principal reason for his removal. He could not 
then see the sinfulness of slavery as good men 
have since seen it ; but he saw enough to con- 
vince him that he and his family would be hap- 
pier and more prosperous in a free state. 

While Mr. Lincoln was planning in reference 
to his new home, and talking the matter over 
with his wife, a man by the name of Colby 
came into his cabin. He wanted to buy the 
farm, and does not appear to have been afraid 



The Forest Boy. 31 

that Mr. Lincoln's title was not good. They 
soon made a bargain, Colby agreeing to pay for 
the house and cultivated lands, for the whole 
real estate of Thomas Lincoln, three hundred 
dollars ! The very convenient " greenback " 
currency, which passes alike at the counter in 
New York or Boston and the cabin of the West, 
was not of course in circulation then, and gold 
and silver were seldom seen among the buyers 
and sellers of those forest homes. "We should 
not, however, have " guessed " that the pur- 
chaser of the farm paid for it mostly in whisky ; 
but such was the case. He agreed to give ten 
barrels of that article, valued at two hundred 
and eighty dollars, and twenty dollars in cash. 

It must be remembered that these were days 
when even good men thought that the daily 
use of intoxicating liquors as a drink might be 
good ; but they have learned better now, and 
the light that has been given to the people of 
the country through the temperance cause ren- 
ders the making, selling, or using the poisonous 
article as a drink, a sin. Mr. Lincoln learned 



32 The Forest Boy. 

in after years that the wise treatment of whisky- 
was neither to touch, taste, nor handle it. 

Mr. Lincoln was to have a short time in 
which to make his preparations to move. He 
at once built a flatboat, and launched it upon a 
stream a short distance from his cabin, called 
the Rolling Fork. Into this flatboat (a boat 
much like gondolas of the Eastern shores) he 
put his ten barrels of whisky and the heavy ar- 
ticles of the farm and cabin. He then started 
off to find a spot for his new home, leaving his 
family until his return. He floated down the 
Rolling Fork into the Ohio River, and then 
along the shore safely for some distance. But 
the most careful navigator is sometimes wrecked ; 
so Mr. Lincoln, though doubtless very carefully 
watching to avoid every danger, as a man would 
naturally do whose boat bore his entire wealth, 
was upset, and his cargo plunged into the rush- 
ing waters. He must have been near some 
landing-place, as he obtained immediate aid in 
righting his boat and saving a few barrels of 
whisky and some other valuable articles. His 



The Foeest Boy. 33 

loss, however, must have been veiy severe, and 
he doubtless continued his voyage with a sor- 
rowful heart. Landing at Thompson's Ferry, 
Indiana, he gave a man his flatboat to carry 
him and his goods into the interior. Their team 
dragged slowly along a poor road ; sometimes 
they were obliged to stop and open one through 
the woods with the ax. They arrived at last, 
after journeying eighteen miles, at a location 
whose fertility and beauty invited them to stop. 

Leaving his goods in the care of a neighbor, 
about two miles off, Mr. Lincoln returned with 
the wagon to Thompson's Ferry, and having 
crossed the Ohio, walked home. 

The days of Mr. Lincoln's absence were busy 
and thoughtful ones with Mrs. Lincoln and the 
children. It was hard parting with a spot 
where all the sights and sounds reminded them 
of happy days which were past. They visited 
the grave of little baby Thomas, and shed over 
it their parting tears. This last incident deeply 
affected Abraham, and he often referred to it in 
the years of his manhood with much emotion. 



34 The Forest Boy. 

Everything being ready, the bedding and the 
few remaining household articles were packed 
upon three horses, and the family, riding, but 
frequently on foot, began their journey. In 
seven days they reached the spot selected by 
Mr. Lincoln. Here a log-cabin was built by 
the assistance of a neighbor, and they were soon 
surrounded with such comforts as belong to 
these humble homes. This house contained 
only one room below, and a small attic made by 
laying rough boards overhead ; this was reached 
by a ladder, and was Abraham's bedroom. 
His bed was a bearskin thrown upon the boards, 
with a blanket for covering. The family of 
course lived in the room below, which served 
also as the sleeping room of Sarah and the 
parents. Skins put up at the doors shut out 
the piercing winds, but when the cold was se- 
vere all slept near the glowing fire. The bed- 
stead of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln was made by a 
rough framework of nails and slabs fitted 
against the side of the cabin, with a sack of 
dried leaves thrown upon it. A table was con- 



The Forest Boy. 35 

structed of a wide slab, with legs inserted into 
the rounded side, and three stools were made in 
the same way of smaller pieces. 

Their " mill " was, in form, like the " mortar 
and pestle " of a New England Thanksgiving 
day ; " the mortar " being about three feet of 
the trunk of a large tree, whose end had been 
burnt out to hold the corn, and the " pestle " 
being a heavy piece of wood hung on " a sweep," 
as buckets are sometimes hung on " well sweeps." 
This contrivance of the pioneers saved a long 
and difficult journey to the regular mill. Dur- 
ing the winter, which was now near, Mr. Lin- 
coln was engaged in chopping down trees and 
clearing the land for the spring planting. The 
comfort of the family was much aided by the 
sale of the whisky which was saved from the 
wreck upon the Ohio. The trusty gun, that 
true friend of the pioneer, brought them plenty 
of game. The fire burned cheerfully within 
the cabin of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, and 
we will enter to see what besides they had to 
make them happy. 



36 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER IY. 

SCHOOLS AND BOOKS. 

Not long before Abraham left Kentucky, and 
when he was about seven years of age, Zecha- 
riah Riney opened a school for the children of 
the neighborhood of Nolin Creek. Of the 
school-house in which the scholars daily assem- 
bled we know nothing; but we may safely 
imagine that some log-cabin, or a room of the 
plainest frame building, was gladly accepted 
for the purpose. Riney taught three months, 
and Abraham attended, commencing to read 
and write. Caleb Hazel soon took the school, 
and taught another three months. During 
these six months Abraham made rapid improve- 
ment, and at the close of the last term was able 
to read in the family the plain portions of the 
Bible, greatly to the gratification of his parents. 
Soon after the removal to Indiana there were 



The Forest Boy. 37 

others who taught for a little while at a time ; 
and Abraham's parents, though so very poor, 
always succeeded in making some arrangement 
by which he could have the benefit of these 
opportunities. These teachers were men of 
little education ; but they could read, and 
write, and " cipher," and these were attain- 
ments which rendered them very useful to the 
pioneer children. Indeed, but few of the 
parents could see the utility of studying books 
beyond this, and some regarded even this small 
degree of learning as quite unnecessary. 

Abraham's entire school privileges extended 
through one year only. But at the end of this 
time he could write a tolerably correct and 
intelligible letter. It was not only by the 
teaching which he received in school that he 
was enabled to do this ; he diligently practiced 
at home. Though pens, paper, and ink were 
scarce in his father's cabin, charcoal and birch 
bark were not, and these answered in their 
stead. Sitting down by the cheerful fire, he 
wrote, over and over again, the copy set him 



38 The Forest Boy. 

by his teacher. Sarah was astonished at his 
success, and felt proud of her ambitious brother. 
The father and mother looked approvingly at 
their boy, and silently prayed that God would 
make him a good and useful man. 

The only text-book which Abraham pos- 
sessed during these school-days was an old copy 
of Dill worth's speller. This and the Bible and 
Catechism were constantly in his hands during 
his leisure hours, when he was not practicing 
with his birch-bark copy-books. No doubt he 
delighted "to spell" his sister Sarah, and to 
puzzle even older persons with the hard words 
he had learned. Boys of his age who love 
their studies are apt to go humming round the 
house, showing off their learning to the other 
members of the family. 

Having now a good start in reading, other 
books fell into his hand from time to time. 
The kind providence of God finds food for such 
hungry little minds, just as he provides food 
and clothing for their bodies. " Esop's Fables " 
was the next book of which he became the 



The Forest Boy. 39 

owner. Its pictures, though coarse in compari- 
son with those of our present juvenile works, 
were exceedingly attractive, and its lessons, 
taught by the stories of beasts and birds, deeply 
impressed him. His pleasure in sitting by the 
blazing fire during the winter evenings was 
greatly increased as he read its pages, and 
repeated its fables to Sarah. It seemed to the 
eight-year-old boy a long step up the ladder 
of knowledge. No out-door sport, however 
much he delighted in it, could keep him a long 
time from his books. 

On one occasion his love for a gun was 
greatly excited. His father had gone with his 
ax to work in the forest. Abraham looked 
through the openings between the logs of the 
cabin, and saw, not far off, a flock of wild 
turkeys. He had never fired a gun, but at 
once determined to try. Taking his father's 
fowling-piece from its place, he pointed it 
through the crevice of the logs and fired, kill- 
ing one of the finest of the flock. This was 
considered a wonderful shot for such a bov, 



40 The Forest Boy. 

and Abraham was flattered more for it than for 
his ambition to get useful knowledge. Yet he 
never learned to love the life of a hunter. 
Gunning seemed an idle way of spending time, 
except when it was necessary to obtain food. 

Just in good time, when Esop's Fables had 
been well read, and its lessons deeply impressed 
upon his mind, " Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress " 
was obtained. He was prepared for just such 
kind of truth as it imparted, being led to think 
of lessons more important than those of the 
Fables; not new, indeed, but set forth in a 
new and impressive manner. He followed the 
Pilgrim through his many conflicts to the gates 
of the Celestial City, and felt that he under- 
stood better what he had been taught from the 
Bible and his mother's lips. It afforded his 
mother new topics for religious conversation, 
in which she breathed into his tender mind her 
living Christian spirit. 

The next book with which Abraham was 
enriched was " "Weems's Life of Washington." 
This was the most exciting, though not the 



The Forest Boy. 41 

best book lie bad read. It was full of tbe dash- 
ing adventures of tbe southern heroes of the 
Revolution. Its stories of battles were told 
with great spirit, and its life-pictures of George 
Washington were deeply impressive. A burn- 
ing love for bis country, which was never 
extinguished, was kindled by its pages. He 
remarked many years afterward, " I remember 
all the accounts there given of the battle-fields 
and struggles for the liberties of the country." 
When he laid down this book to get wood for 
his mother's fire, or to aid his father in the 
work of the farm, he was thinking about 
Washington and the men who fought with him. 
It was always one of his peculiarities, that he 
thought a great deal of what he read. He had 
many questions to ask his parents about it, 
many, indeed, which they could not answer. 
He says of himself, in looking back upon these 
days : " I recollect thinking then, boy even 
though I was, that there must have been some- 
thing* more than common that these men 



42 The Foeest Boy. 

The next book read was the Life of Henry 
Clay. Mr. Clay was then "the young man 
eloquent," whose fame was filling the land. 
Many, thought that no place of honor in the 
nation was so high as not to be within reach of 
his brilliant talents. God designed Abraham 
Lincoln for a politician and statesman, and this 
book came into his hands to lay early in his 
mind the foundation of a deep interest in the 
great questions which concerned his country's 



Abraham was now about nine years of age. 
His appearance spoke of his humble condition. 
His pants and coat were made of dressed buck- 
skin, such as was worn by the Indians, and his 
cap was of raccoon skin? He was hapj>y in 
his Indiana home, and in the glowing ambi- 
tion which his books had inspired within his 
youthful heart. But the tender sensibilities of 
his mind were to be made strong by the blasts 
of adversity, and the disciplining of severe 
bereavement. 



The Forest Boy. 43 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GREAT BEREAVEMENT. 

There was a gloom pervading the cabin of 
Thomas Lincoln, when, less than two years after 
he came to Indiana, his wife began to sink 
under the inroads of consumption. The faith- 
ful wife and loving mother was about to leave 
her forest home for a mansion in heaven. Her 
spirit toward her family became more than ever 
tender. She spoke to them of her hope in the 
Saviour, and of the peace which passes all under- 
standing, conferred by the merits of his blood. 
Abraham and Sarah listened with affectionate 
interest. Already she seemed to them " an an- 
gel mother," and kindly they anticipated all her 
wants ; and when she became too weak to leave 
her bed, they moved gently about the cabin, 
fearing to make any noise which might disquiet 
her sensitive nature. Abraham read to her in 



44 The Forest Boy. 

a subdued voice the exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises which she had loved so well in 
health. It was thus that God's word made im- 
pressions upon his mind too sacred ever to be 
effaced. It was his mother's dying support, and 
it spoke peace to his own troubled mind in the 
hours of great sorrow. When at last his moth- 
er's lifeless form lay before him, his Bible 
seemed his best friend, as indeed it was. 

There were but few friends to call at the 
Lincoln home in this time of bereavement, yet 
these few cordially tendered their aid and sym- 
pathy. 

Mrs. Lincoln was buried in a simple manner, 
under the shadow of the forest trees. Abraham 
lingered upon the grave and wept. There was 
no minister of the Gospel near, but the influ- 
ence of the preaching of earlier years held a 
silent sway over his heart. 

The Lincoln family had never been favored 
with regular public religious service. "When 
they were in Kentucky they received the occa- 
sional visits to their neighborhood of the faith- 



The Foeest Boy. 45 

ful itinerants. They preached in the open for- 
ests, or in the friendly cabin, to which the 
people gathered for many miles around. Their 
words strengthened the faith of the few believ- 
ers among the settlers, and aroused the slumber- 
ing feelings of the careless. They had been 
much-loved seasons to the now sainted mother, 
and Abraham remembered them for her sake, 
and felt anew their power. There was one 
among these itinerants whom he called to mind 
with special love. His name was Elkins, a 
Baptist preacher. A few months after Mrs. 
Lincoln's death, the broken circle of the cabin, 
sitting about the fireside, talked of Parson El- 
kins, and the mother's grave unhonored by any 
religious service. It was decided that Abraham 
should write, inviting him to come and preach 
her funeral sermon. It was Abraham's first 
letter, and in a holy service written. With deep 
interest the family waited a reply. In due 
season it came, the good man willingly prom- 
ising to come at an appointed time. Faithful 
to his promise, he made the difficult journey of 



46 The Forest Boy. 

nearly one hundred miles to perform the labor 
of love. Abraham had diligently extended the 
notice to the settlers in every direction for 
twenty miles. Parson Elkins entered the Lin- 
coln cabin, and there learned how well his 
Christian friend had died ; he had observed in 
earlier days how well she had lived. At the 
appointed time he went forth to meet the peo- 
ple around her grave. It was a beautiful Sab- 
bath morning. Notice had spread beyond the 
limits of Abraham's most distant rides to carry 
it, and at an early hour the congregation began 
to assemble. Those who have not seen such 
gatherings cannot understand the depth of inter- 
est which is manifested in the pains taken to 
reach the place. In ox-teams, on the backs of 
mules and horses, in carriages of rude construc- 
tion, and on foot ; over difficult roads and 
through paths scarcely discernible, they press 
to the sacred spot. The old come bending 
upon the tops of their staves, the strong labor- 
ers from their toil, and children in their moth- 
ers' arms. No member of these scattered com- 













Young; Lincoln at his Mother's Grave. 



The Forest Boy. 49 

munities is uninterested in these solemn gath- 
erings. 

The minister took his stand at the head of 
the grave. Before him, sitting upon the ground, 
or in vehicles drawn up on the outskirts of the 
multitude, or standing leaning against the trees, 
was a congregation as solemn and as eager for 
the bread of life as could be found in more cul- 
tivated society. The hymn was read, and sung 
in one of the simple melodies so common among 
the congregations of these early itinerants; 
simple, but full of deep emotional power. The 
prayer, and the sermon that followed, were not 
listened to with a mere cold respect for serious 
things. The audience were eager to hear, and 
not a word was lost. The preacher spoke of 
Christ as the " resurrection and the life," and 
closed with a eulogy on the character of the de- 
parted saint. Her life had fully prepared her 
friends and neighbors to receive the glowing 
words of praise. 

As the people slowly dispersed, Abraham 
stood silent and alone at the grave. His great 



50 Tue Forest Boy. 

loss came home to his heart with fresh power, 
and he inwardly resolved to follow his mother's 
example in loving God and his word. 

Abraham and Sarah became dearer to each 
other after their mother's death. Upon the 
latter, bow about eleven years of age, devolved, 
for a year at least, the in-door care of the fam- 
ily. But her brother, whose fondness for read- 
ing and study kept him at home, was ever 
ready to help. Kindness to others, and a will- 
ingness to bear a portion of their burdens, was 
always a trait in Abraham Lincoln's character, 
and clearly showed itself now toward his sister. 
He read to her the family Bible, and studied it 
alone, until he could repeat a large portion of 
it ; when in after years he was in great trouble, 
its sweet promises came to him with much 
comfort. 

Abraham's father married about a year after 
his mother's death. This second wife was a 
kind guardian of Abraham and his sister, and 
they soon learned to love her and her children, 
older than himself, whom she brought into the 



The Forest Boy. 51 

family. His weight of grief abated in a few 
years. He had not learned to love his mother's 
memory less, but God kindly provides a balm at 
the hands of time for human woe, since we can- 
not worthily serve him if we always weep. 

At the end of four years from his mother's 
death Sarah died, at the age of fifteen. This 
renewed cause of grief to her sensitive and lov- 
ing brother was seen for a long time in his sad 
countenance. Indeed, these early sorrows were 
never forgotten ; perhaps the burden of other 
years kept them in remembrance. The painter 
of " The Signing of the Emancipation Procla- 
mation " says that Abraham Lincoln's counte- 
nance was the saddest he ever saw. 



52 The Foeest Boy. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EARLY MANLINESS. 

As Abraham grew to early manhood he became 
tall and strong beyond his years. He rendered 
good service to the family with his ax in felling 
trees and clearing the land, and with the hoe in 
planting and cultivating. But he did not vaunt 
himself on account of his physical powers, and, 
though stronger than most of his associates, and 
frequently, in a playful manner, wrestling and 
running with them, he never used his superior- 
ity to annoy them. He was more ambitious to 
excel in knowledge, and to use that knowledge 
for the good of others. He became the general 
letter-writer of his neighborhood. The pio- 
neers, being away from their early friends in the 
older states, and many of them not knowing 
how to write, used his hand and pen with great 
pleasure. It is evident that they regarded him as 



The Fokest Boy. 53 

no ordinary young man, and even then learned 
to look up to him as their leader ; and he con- 
stantly strove to be worthy of this high esteem. 

Not long after the death of his mother a Mr. 
Crawford opened a school in his neighborhood. 
He is one of the teachers of whom we have 
spoken, under whom Abraham obtained the 
beginning of his knowledge of arithmetic. Mr. 
Crawford was a very kind-hearted man, and, 
seeing Abraham's love for books, lent him 
Ramsay's Life of Washington. This was a 
great prize. Weems had excited his imagina- 
tion by highly colored incidents of the life and 
times of the Father of his country ; Ramsay 
gave him more solid information. He carried 
his prize home as a miner would have done a 
piece of quartz heavy with shining gold. He 
bounded into the cabin, holding up his treasure 
to his father and Sarah, (for this was before her 
death,) his face flushed with excitement. They 
were both pleased with his good fortune, and 
Mr. Lincoln promised himself a great treat in 
hearins: it read. 



54 The Forest Boy. 

After the toils of the day the sadness of the 
broken family circle was for the time relieved 
while Abraham sat, with his back to the fire, 
holding up the borrowed volume to its light, by 
which he read aloud. Candles and lamps were 
luxuries not freely used by the pioneers. The 
father sat on one side of the fireplace, resting 
his chin upon his hand and his elbow upon the 
table, looking his son in the face with parental 
pride. He was thinking quite as much of the 
reader as of the great and good man of whom 
he was reading. Sarah sat upon the other side, 
her fingers busily employed while she listened, 
and her eyes now and then resting with delight 
upon her noble brother. This was a humble 
literary circle, it may be, but its waves of influ- 
ence were to be extended, by the blessing of 
God, to the ends of the earth and to the latest 
generations ! 

Abraham's interest in this book became ab- 
sorbing. He was generally prompt to obey any 
requirement of his father, and did not have the 
bad habit of waiting for a second request. He 



The Forest Boy. 55 

was also ready to answer promptly and kindly 
any call from his sister for assistance ; but lie 
was now so deeply interested in his book that 
he lingered when called to his daily task. This 
was not right, and he soon saw his error and 
corrected it. 

A sad accident to this volume grew out of 
this intense interest. Being called suddenly to 
leave it, he laid it down in his hurry upon the 
open window seat ; he should have taken a mo- 
ment more of time and put it in a safe place. 
While he was absent a shower came up, and the 
book was badly wet. With manly honesty, but 
with a heavy heart, Abraham took the book to 
Mr. Crawford, explained to him how it hap- 
pened, and offered to pay for the damage in 
work. Mr. Crawford proposed to sell him the 
book instead of taking pay for the injury. To 
this Abraham readily agreed, and " pulled fod- 
der" three days for it. When at length he 
returned home he felt that his labor had made 
him rich. 

The following incident shows how much 



56 The Forest Boy. 

kindness to others was united with his manly 
bearing. One evening, when returning, with 
several young men, from a neighbor's, where 
they had been raising the frame of a new house, 
he discovered a horse, saddled and bridled, 
feeding by the roadside. He immediate^ 
recognized it as the horse of an acquaintance, 
who was frequently drunk. The young men at 
once searched for the owner, and found him 
chilled and helpless upon the ground. Abra- 
ham's companions sneeringly remarked that 
they would not trouble themselves further about 
the miserable fellow, and that he might lie 
there until he was sober enough to go home. 
But Abraham Lincoln could never turn away 
from any person, however undeserving, to whom 
he might be of real benefit. He begged his 
companions to lift the man upon his shoulders. 
He then carried him to the nearest house. 
After he had sent to his father an account of 
what had happened, he remained and nursed 
the poor inebriate until he became able to take 
care of himself. Abraham then returned home 



The Forest Boy. 57 

with the pleasant thought that he had probably 
saved the man's life. 

Every manly effort gives increased desire for 
other efforts, and more strength in their per- 
formance, and such was Abraham's experience. 
When he was about eighteen years of age, the 
harvest of the Lincoln farm proved more than 
was needed for home consumption ; the surplus 
had been raised by his own hands, so he formed 
the resolution of building a small flatboat and 
taking this produce to New Orleans. To this 
Mrs. Lincoln objected. Though not her own son, 
she loved Abraham. The distance was great, 
and the enterprise was full of dangers. Besides, 
she would miss him so much from the log-cabin 
home ! But he greatly desired to go, though he 
declared he would not stir a step without her 
consent ; he wanted to see more of the world, 
and to be doing more for the family. The mat- 
ter was talked over by the father and mother, 
till they finally decided that he might go. If 
he was successful, the money obtained would 
enable them to purchase many things which 



58 The Forest Boy. 

they very much needed. They knew his manly 
spirit and good judgment, and felt great confi- 
dence that he would succeed. 

Abraham immediately commenced building 
his flatboat. He had a few tools, and was 
fond of showing his skill in using them. His 
boat was soon about done. One day, while he 
stood looking at it, thinking how he could make 
it stronger, more convenient, or improve it in 
any way, a steamer stopped opposite the land- 
ing. There were no wharves at that time on 
the Ohio, so the steamers paused for the passen- 
gers to go ashore or to be sent aboard in boats. 
While the steamer was waiting, two gentlemen 
came to the landing in a carriage, bringing 
heavy trunks. They looked at several boats 
which were ready for their accommodation, and 
finally stopped and looked at Abraham's. Ap- 
proaching him, they said, " Whose boat is this, 
young man ? " 

" It is mine," he replied with an honest pride. 

" Will you carry us and our trunks to the 
Bteamer?" they inquired again. 



The Forest Boy. 59 

" Certainly," said Abraham, seizing the trunks 
and placing them in his boat. He hoped to 
earn fifty or seventy-five cents, besides accom- 
modating the strangers. The gentlemen sat 
upon the trunks while Abraham sculled them 
to the steamer. They stepped on board, and he 
lifted their trunks to the deck. The steamer 
was about to start, when he called to the stran- 
gers, reminding them that they had not paid 
him. Thus prompted, they each threw into his 
boat a silver half dollar. He was delighted. 
It was the first dollar he had ever earned. He 
could scarcely believe that he, a poor boy, had, 
by his own hard labor, earned a dollar in less 
than a day. When Mr. Lincoln, in after years, 
told this story, he added : " This may seem 
like a very little thing, and it seems to me now 
like a trifle. But it was a most important inci- 
dent in my life. The world seemed wider and 
fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and 
confident being from that time." 

"We know nothing more of Abraham's 
first trip down the Mississippi, but are con- 



CO The Forest Boy. 

fident its results met the expectations of his 
friends. 

Returning to his father's farm, he cheerfully 
resumed his former toil. At one time he took 
a grist of corn upon the back of the family 
horse, and rode fifty miles to get it ground. 
The mill was a very poor one, turned by horse 
power. The customers had to wait their turn, 
and then use their own horse to move the mill- 
stones. Abraham's turn had come, and having 
attached his horse to a long pole by which the 
mill was put in motion, he was following her 
with a switch and " a cluck." The horse, per- 
haps resenting the double work of bearing the 
corn to mill through so great a distance, and 
grinding it when there, suddenly lifted her heels 
and kicked her master, stunning him by the 
blow. The moment he came to himself he fin- 
ished his "cluck," and, jumping up, compelled 
the horse to complete the job and bear him and 
his meal home. 

The monotony of his daily duties was broken 
soon after by a new employment. The nearest 



The Foeest Boy. CI 

point on the Ohio to his father's farm was Troy, 
a small town at the mouth of Anderson's Creek. 
Here for a few months he acted as ferryman, 
thus addiug to his knowledge of river life. 

$L year after Abraham's first voyage down 
the Mississippi in his own small fiatboat, a trad- 
ing neighbor proposed a much more important 
trip. He desired him to take a fiatboat cargo 
to the sugar plantations near New Orleans. 
The trader proposed to invest a considerable 
amount of money in the enterprise, so that to 
him as well as to Abraham it was an important 
affair. But he knew Abraham's honesty and 
good management. He believed that he would 
make the trip profitable. 

Abraham set out on the long voyage of eight- 
een hundred miles with the son of his employer. 
They sailed only about as fast as the current of 
the " Father of Waters " carried them. With 
a long oar extending from each side, and one at 
the stern, to keep the boat in the deep water, 
and prevent it from striking the " snags " and 
" sawyers," they moved quietly along. Some- 



62 The Forest Boy. 

times the river spread itself over a great extent 
of country, and they were at a loss to keep the 
channel. At other times it rushed through a 
narrow " cut off," and compelled them to work 
with great vigor and skill to prevent their h#at 
from being upset or dashed against the shore. 

They had a little cabin on board, in which 
they cooked, and into which they crawled for 
rest and shelter. When the darkness or the 
weather prevented them from sailing safely, 
they tied the boat up to the shore. 

Arriving at last among the plantations be- 
tween Natchez and New Orleans, they began 
to think of a landing and a sale. One night 
they fastened their boat to the banks of the 
river, and lay down to sleep. When the night 
was well advanced, Abraham, who was not ea- 
sily taken by surprise, even during the sleeping 
hours, heard the sound of stealthy steps approach- 
ing the boat. He shouted, " Who's there ? " 
There was no answer, but the sudden dash of 
seven negroes toward the boat, bent on plunder, 
and perhaps murder. They had awoke no 



The Forest Boy. 63 

puny, cowardly opponent. Abraham seized a 
club, and with giant blows knocked the first 
three comers into the river. The others, seeing 
Abraham's companion springing to the rescue, 
and intimidated by the rough handling given 
to their comrades, turned to escape. But their 
retreat was as unsuccessful as their attack. 
They were overtaken and severely punished. 
The others scrambled from the river, and having 
no further relish for the fight, ran away. The 
victors, thinking the negroes might return with 
fresh recruits in large numbers, cast off their 
Hues, and, drifting down the river a mile or 
two, drew up again to the shore and waited for 
the morning. They were exhausted and a little 
wounded by the conflict, but not seriously hurt. 

Having sold their cargo to good advantage, 
they disposed of their flatboat and returned 
home. 

Abraham's pay for his services was at the 
rate of ten dollars a month. This was small 
return indeed, but he received large compensa- 
tion in the increased confidence of his friends. 



64 The Foeest Boy. 

and in the future development of a manly 
character. 

He was now nearly a man in years, and much 
larger than ordinary men. He was six feet and 
four inches in height. No bad habits had 
weakened his body or clouded his mind. He 
used no intoxicating drinks, and turned with 
manly contempt from tobacco. He was not 
guilty of the low sin of swearing, and his word 
was never doubted by those who knew him. 
Though his education from books had advanced 
no further than the capability of reading, writ- 
ing, and " ciphering," he had a brave heart and 
good conscience. Thus prepared, he was about 
to begin life anew. 



The Forest Boy. 65 



CHAPTER VII. 

BEGINNING ANEW. 

The family of Thomas Lincoln had been in 
Indiana about fourteen years. Great changes 
had taken place, but there were many ties to 
bind them to their home. Here were the graves 
of their loved ones. Many acres of land had 
been brought into cultivation by severe toil. 
Later emigrants had settled about them, and 
rendered themselves dear by acts of friendship. 
But the location was thought to be unhealthy. 
The heavy growth of trees rendered the labor 
of any further clearing of the land very great. 
Exciting accounts had come from Illinois of the 
fertile prairie lands, skirted by woods, and well 
watered by streams. Dennis Hanks, a relative 
of Mr. Lincoln's first wife, was sent to "spy 
out " this land and bring them word again. 
He returned, and reported that it needed only 



66 The Forest Boy. 

the plow to prepare it for the seed, and that 
abundant crops could be secured with little 
labor. 

Thus stimulated to indulge his moving pro- 
pensity, Abraham's father sold at once his Indi- 
ana farm, and in March, 1830, was on his way 
to Illinois. His wife's daughters and their hus- 
bands were of the company. They traveled 
with ox-teams, into which their goods were 
loaded. The family rode or walked, as the way 
permitted. The spring rains had swollen the 
rivers, and given to the rich soil that condition 
which made it difficult at times for the teams to 
move. One of them was driven by Abraham. 
He had just completed his twenty-first year, 
and was a man in strength and euergy. "While 
crossing the bottom lands of the Kaskaskia 
River, the men of the family waded through 
water several feet deep. Persons of less energy 
would have given up in despair, or been diverted 
from their purpose. But Abraham, leading the 
rest with his team, overcame the obstacles by 
the same persistency which, in after years, 



The Forest Boy. 67 

made him triumphant in nobler enterprises. In 
fifteen days the party traveled two hundred 
miles, and reached Macon County, Illinois. A 
spot was selected, ten miles west of Decatur, 
on the north side of the Sangamon River, on 
prairie land bordered by a fine growth of trees. 
The first business was to provide a new home. 
Abraham assisted his father in building a cabin, 
and his relative, John Hanks, came and lent a 
helping hand to the work. The house was cut 
and split from the forest trees, and was com- 
pleted in four days. It was nine logs, or about 
eighteen feet, high. The material for the doors, 
floor, and shingling, were split from the logs. 
It was eighteen feet long and sixteen wide. It 
had neither window sashes nor glass, but a hole 
in the shutters, over which a piece of oiled paper 
was drawn, gave them a little light when the 
cold required the shutters to be closed. Only a 
few nails were used about the building, and 
these were brought from Indiana. It was a 
genuine union cabin, nine different kinds of 
wood entering into its material. The tools used 



68 The Foeest Boy. 

about it were a common ax, broad ax, hand- 
saw, and " a drawer knife." A few out-build- 
ings were erected near it, and the home was 
completed ! 

This cabin was exhibited during the summer 
of 1865, on Boston Common, by the Mr. Hanks 
who helped build it. It has since been removed 
by Mr. Barnum to his museum in New York. 

The house being done, Abraham aided in 
splitting rails enough to inclose a ten acre lot. 
A good friend of his has said that " he split rails 
well." He did well all common work, and thus 
prepared himself for higher and more difficult 
labor. 

Having inclosed, he assisted in plowing and 
planting the ten acre field. Thus having seen 
his father's family comfortably started in their 
new position, Abraham spent the rest of the 
farming season with neighboring planters, re- 
ceiving monthly wages. During this time he 
broke up fifty acres of prairie land, using four 
yoke of oxen. This toil afforded him only a liv- 
ing. But his mind was much occupied with 



The Forest Boy. 69 

nobler purposes. He read such useful books as 
came within his reach, and pursued his studies 
in the branches of knowledge already com- 
menced. 

He was working at one time during the sum- 
mer on the farm of a Mr. Taylor, and boarding 
in the family of Mr. Brown. At this period 
there were in that section of country no public 
houses, and travelers were accommodated at the 
private residences. One evening a man rode 
up to Mr. Brown's fence, and inquired if he 
could stay over night. Mr. Brown replied that 
he could give him something to eat, and take 
care of his horse, but he could not lodge him 
unless he consented to sleep with the hired man. 
The stranger hesitated about accepting this con- 
dition, and asked where the hired man was. 
"You can come and see," replied Mr. Brown. 
So the stranger dismounted, and Mr. Brown led 
him round where Abraham was lying in the 
shadow of the house, at full length upon the 
ground, deeply interested in the book he was 
reading. " There he is," said Mr. Brown, 



70 The Forest Boy. 

pointing to Abraham. The stranger scanned 
him from head to foot as he arose, his sunburnt 
face glowing with good-natnre and intelligence. 
" He will do," said the stranger ; and, as Abra- 
ham concluded, upon a survey of the visitor, 
that he would do, they slept together that night. 
The family of Abraham's father were disap- 
pointed in their new location. They had 
sought for a more healthy region than that of 
Indiana. But here they were all attacked, in 
the first autumn, with the fever and ague. 
This was a new difficulty for the pioneers, and 
a very serious one. It was of no avail that the 
soil was fertile and the scenery beautiful. It 
was not enough that their neighbors were kind 
and their cabin comfortable. Without health, 
all was marred. So in the spring Abraham 
assisted in moving the family to Coles County. 
Here his father lived until he had completed 
his seventy-third year. He ever received from 
his son the most devoted and affectionate atten- 
tion, ne died July 17, 1852. 



The Forest Boy. 71 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ENERGY AND HONESTY. 

Abraham did not fully leave the parental home 
until his father's removal to Coles County. He 
then became only a visitor there, having his 
residence where he could find the means of 
living, and of increasing his stock of book 
knowledge. One who knew him well at this 
period, having split rails with him, says he was 
an ungainly, rough-looking young man. His 
trowsers were made of coarse material, cut tight 
at the ankles, and were worn through on both 
knees. Though he was known to be very poor, 
yet such was the esteem in which his character 
was held, and the pleasure felt in his social 
qualities, that he was a welcome guest in every 
family. He spared no pains to obtain work, 
walking sometimes several miles before and 
after his day's toil ; yet his cheerful spirit never 



72 The Forest Boy. 

received the prompting which comes from a full 
purse. 

Wishing at one time to obtain a pair of new 
pants for those "out at the knees," it became 
a study to know how he should pay for them. 
He finally made a bargain with Mrs. Nancy 
Miller for the necessary yards of jean, dyed 
with white walnut bark, agreeing to split four 
hundred rails for each yard of cloth. 

One so willing to work as Mr. Lincoln could 
not long be without a paying employment. 
During his first winter in Illinois a Mr. Ofiutt, 
a trader, proposed to engage him to take, in the 
spring, a flatboat to New Orleans. Abraham's 
experience in this hazardous business, and his 
great energy, made him just the man for the 
service, and this kind of business suited his en- 
terprising spirit. When the spring opened he 
purchased a canoe, and, taking John Hanks 
and John D. Johnston as his companions in the 
voyage, proceeded down the Sangamon Kiver 
to Springfield. They here met Offutt, but he 
had tailed to purchase a flatboat according to 



The Fokest Boy. 73 

the previous arrangement. The three voyagers 
immediately went about seven miles northwest 
of Springfield, to Sangamon town, on the river 
of the same name, and built and launched a 
flatboat. They did the work at the rate of 
twelve dollars a month, chopping out logs for 
the material from heavy timber, and sawing 
them into planks with " a whip-saw." They 
floated their boat down the river below New 
Salem, and landed at a point where a drove of 
hogs were to be taken on board. The hogs 
were wild, having grown up in the woods, and 
would be neither coaxed nor driven into the 
boat. The business of taking in freight was for 
a brief time at a standstill ; but Mr. Lincoln 
was not to be turned aside from his purpose by 
the stubbornness of a drove of hogs. Seizing 
them, one by one, he dragged them along, in 
spite of their noisy protests and vigorous resist- 
ance, and tumbled them into the boat. Then, 
after completing their cargo with a variety of 
articles of less troublesome freight, they started 
for New Orleans. Mr. Hanks, fearing a longer 



74 The Forest Boy. 

absence from his family than he had supposed, 
left them at St. Louis', and returned home. 
The trip was made by the other two, the boat 
and 'cargo sold at good advantage, and the set- 
tlement made with Mr. Offutt to his satisfac- 
tion. In fact he was so well pleased with Mr. 
Lincoln, that he offered him further employ- 
ment. Mr. Offutt had a store and mill at New 
Salem. These, during his trading excursions 
about the country, he had intrusted to clerks, 
who had disgusted and driven away his custom- 
ers by their bad manners, and cheated him in 
their accounts. He gave the charge of this mill 
and store to Mr. Lincoln, who brought to the 
new position industry and fidelity. He knew 
what ought to be done, and did it promptly. 
The people of the whole region soon learned to 
like the new clerk, and flocked to the store both 
to buy goods and to hear his pleasant talk. 
The business increased, and so did the gains of 
his employer, for they did not now stop in the 
clerk's pocket, or slip through the clerk's fin- 
gers for his own gratification. His exact hon- 



The Forest Boy. 75 

esty became well known, but bis way of snow- 
ing it was sometimes a little amusing. A 
woman came into tbe store arid bougbt goods 
to tbe amount of two dollars and six cents. 
Sbe paid tbat sum, and left tbe store. Wben 
sbe bad gone, Mr. Lincoln cast up tbe figures 
again to assure bimself tbat be was rigbt, and, 
in doing so, ascertained tbat be bad taken just 
six cents too muck It was toward tbe close of 
tbe business bours, so, sbutting tbe store, be 
walked between two and tbree miles, found tbe 
customer, paid tbe balance due, and returned 
with tbe satisfaction of baving acted squarely 
up to a bigb sense of right. 

At another time, just as he was about to 
close the store for the night, a woman called 
for half a pound of tea. It was weighed, as be 
supposed, and the customer, having paid the 
price, departed. On opening the store in the 
morning be observed a four-ounce weight in 
the scales. It was at once plain to Mr. Lin- 
coln tbat he had given tbe woman but half as 
much tea as she paid for. He immediately 



76 The Forest Boy. 

locked tlie store, and, without lirst getting his 
breakfast, took a long walk to deliver the full 
weight. 

Since "a good name is rather to be chosen 
than great riches," Abraham Lincoln had now 
acquired a priceless treasure. His honesty be- 
came as widely known as his tall figure, at- 
tractive stories, and great physical power. 
" Honest " became from this time the prefix to 
his name ; his rough companions always spoke 
of him as " Honest Abe ;" and the loyal masses 
of his whole country delighted, a few years 
after, with more hearty good- will than good 
taste, to ring the changes upon the name of 
" Honest Abe," varying it by the still more 
distasteful appellation of " Old Abe." Our 
youthful readers will prefer to know and speak 
of him as the pure principled man, honest 
Abraham Lincoln. 

At one time, while Mr. Lincoln was waiting 
upon several ladies, a boastful ruffian came into 
the store, using toward him the most abusive 
language, and challenging him to fight. Mr. 



The Forest Boy. 77 

Lincoln begged of him not to use such lan- 
guage, especially as ladies were present. To 
this gentleness the braggart replied by shaking 
his fists, and shouting, " Let the man come on 
who dares to tell me what I shall say." Mr. 
Lincoln replied that if he would wait until the 
ladies were gone he would try to satisfy him, 
and this he succeeded in doing, though not in 
the way his annoyer sought. The two step- 
ping out of the store, he easily laid the boaster 
upon his back, and, holding him in his giant 
grasp with one hand, and reaching out the 
other for a handful of " smart weed," he rubbed 
it freely upon his face and into his eyes, until 
he cried out like a whipped spaniel. Mr. Lin- 
coln then, with the utmost good-nature, winch 
had not been for a moment disturbed during the 
whole incident, brought water and tenderly aided 
in alleviating the pain of the just punishment 
he had inflicted. The rowdy, thoroughly hum- 
bled by his defeat, and completely won by the 
kind manner in which it was done, became the 
steady and warm friend of his victor. 



78 The Forest Boy. 

Another incident, somewhat like the one just 
given, illustrates still more the character of the 
pioneer community in which Mr. Lincoln lived, 
as well as his own peculiarities. 

There was about New Salem a company- 
called the " Clary's Grove Boys," composed of 
the strongest, fleetest, bravest, and most unprin- 
cipled young men of the vicinity. They as- 
sumed the authority of " regulators ; " that is, 
they banded together to whip those who refused 
to acknowledge their rule. They were especi- 
ally severe toward strangers coming to reside 
among them. They required such to race, 
wrestle, or fight with one of their number. Of 
course Mr. Lincoln was considered an excellent 
subject for such demands ; and, as he had always 
been used to trying his physical strength with 
his associates, he was not displeased with the 
proposed trial. The Clary's Boys . selected as 
their champion a young man by the name of 
Armstrong, who was charged with the duty of 
wrestling with Mr. Lincoln, and laying him on 
his back. The whole gang gathered around to 



Tee Forest Boy. 79 

see the sport. It was soon apparent, to the vex- 
ation of " The Boys," that Armstrong had met 
with more than his matcb ; but with a meanness 
belonging to such low minds, they proceeded to 
indulge in "foul play," striking and tripping 
Mr. Lincoln, until he was thrown down. The 
Clary's Boys shouted in triumph, and Lincoln, 
instead of getting angry at their unfairness, and 
thus affording them a pretext to unite and flog 
him, laughed as heartily as any of them. They 
could neither match his strong arm nor over- 
come his good temper. Their envy and desire 
to annoy him were turned into admiration, and 
they gave him an urgent invitation to. become 
one of their number. But he preferred more 
profitable employment and better company. He 
had made them his friends, and their good-will 
soon after helped him in advancing a step 
higher. 



80 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER IX. 

A STEP HIGHER. 

Having become known as a strong and brave 
man, and having secured the confidence of all 
in his honesty, Mr. Lincoln determined to earn 
a higher reputation for intelligence. "While in 
Offutt's store, after having read all the books 
within his reach, he resolved to make himself 
acquainted with English grammar. But he 
could not obtain a grammar for some time after 
he had made this resolution. He at last heard 
of a man, eight miles from !New Salem, who 
owned one. He at once walked to his house 
and borrowed it. It was Kirkham's, a work 
which had an extensive popularity in the West 
and South thirty-five years ago. It was an ad- 
mirable text-book for one endeavoring to learn 
without a teacher. It contained simple state- 
ments and examples for beginners under each 



The Forest Boy. 81 

rule ; in critical notes at the bottom of the page 
it gave the necessary information for more ad- 
vanced study. Mr. Lincoln took his prize, and 
stole away as often as possible to make himself 
master of its contents. In the mean time Mr. 
Offutt, who was a general trader, having his 
business spread widely over the country, failed, 
and the store and mill were shut up. Mr. Lin- 
coln was now without any regular employment, 
but was not idle. There was a hill just out of 
the village to which he often resorted with his 
grammar. When he came to a point which he 
did not understand, he made a note of it and 
applied to his friend, Mr. L. M. Green, for ex- 
planation. 

Thus persevering, he mastered the book. 
After having done this, he playfully remarked 
to a friend, that if that was what he called sci- 
ence, he thought he could " subdue another." 

Mr. Lincoln began now to be conscious of his 
great powers, and the eminence to which he 
might attain. He remarked to his friend Green, 
during a familiar conversation, that none of his 



82 The Forest Boy. 

family had become known to fame, but he felt 
that he might perhaps excel them in this respect. 
He had talked with some great men, and did not 
perceive that they differed very much from 
other men. 

He became at this time connected with the 
debating clubs of New Salem and vicinity, and 
often walked six or seven miles to attend their 
meetings. One of these clubs met in an old 
store at New Salem. It was here that he made 
his first speech. He called the discussions 
" practicing polemics." Like such debates gen- 
erally among young men, these " polemics " 
were very amusing. They, however, gave Mr. 
Lincoln confidence in his own powers of argu- 
ment and utterance. 

The following incident, related to us by his 
friend and relative, John Hanks, must have oc- 
curred at this time, and shows that he improved 
his first opportunity to try his gifts before a 
public audience. He went one day to Decatur, 
about ten miles from New Salem, with an ox- 
team. He was barefooted, wore a jacket and 



The Forest Boy. 83 

pants of the coarsest material, and Lad on his 
head a wide-rimmed straw hat, not in the best 
state of repair. The soil of the muddy road 
covered his feet and ankles. 

There was at this time much excitement 
throughout Illinois concerning questions then 
before the legislature at Vandalia, and a politi- 
cal meeting was being held at Decatur in refer- 
ence to them. A gray-headed man had just 
commenced to address, out doors, a crowd of 
people as Mr. Lincoln arrived. He listened at- 
tentively to the speaker, and when he closed 
John Hanks whispered, "Abe, you can beat 
that." Mr. Lincoln shook his head, but contin- 
ued to watch the proceedings of the meeting. 
The next speaker was a genteelly dressed and 
fluent young man. To his speech also Mr. 
Lincoln gave the closest attention, and when he 
sat down Hanks touched Lincoln again, saying, 
" Abe, I know you can beat that." 

" O no, John, I guess not," replied Mr. Lin- 
coln modestly. 

But Hanks was determined to call his friend 



84 The Forest Boy. 

out, and he commenced canvassing for him 
among the crowd. He soon rallied a party who 
began to call for " Abe Lincoln." It was per- 
haps the first utterance of the public voice, local 
and faint then, which afterward became so loud 
and universal that it elevated him to the most 
responsible position in the world. 

A salt box was procured, and, mounting it, 
" allaccoutered as he was," he began his speech.* 
The crowd gathered about him ; but at first his 
appearance repelled attention, and the noise 
drowned his voice. But soon his intelligent 
face, good sense, and his clear, full utterance 
secured for him a favorable hearing, which con- 
tinued to the close of a long speech. The ques- 
tion upon which he spoke was in reference to 
an appropriation by the legislature to remove 
the obstructions to navigation in the Sanga- 
mon River. Perhaps it had been before the 
debating club at New Salem ; at any rate he 
was master of the subject, and when he stepped 
down from the salt box he was greeted with 
Frontispiece. 



The Forest Boy. 85 

hearty cheers. The gray-headed man who had 
first spoken was excited to envy by the superior 
popularity with the people of the t uncouth 
stranger. Approaching him in an excited man- 
ner, he exclaimed, " Young man, where did you 
learn so much ? " 

"In my father's log-cabin," answered Mr. 
Lincoln promptly. 

Stimulated by this success, his ambition for 
reading, study, and close thought took a new 
start. A gentleman called upon him one day, 
and found him lying upon a trundle-bed on his 
back, covered with books and papers, intensely 
absorbed in study, but rocking a cradle with 
his foot, thus contriving to improve his mind, 
and at the same time help his landlady by 
caring for her babe. 

Mr. Lincoln had now become known not 

only for his bravery, strength, and intelligence, 

but for his sound judgment in practical matters. 

He was frequently requested to decide disputed 

claims, to settle quarrels, to answer knotty 

questions, and to give his opinion concerning 
6 



86 The Forest Boy. 

business of grave importance. He was wel- 
come in every social circle, in spite of his pov- 
erty and uncultivated manners. His position 
was indeed one in advance of his previous 
attainments. 






The Forest Boy. 87 



CHAPTEE X. 

EARLY PUBLIC HONORS. 

While Mr. Lincoln was out of employment 
a small cloud of war gathered in the West. 
Black Hawk, chief of the Sacs Indians, col- 
lected a company of warriors from his own and 
neighboring tribes, and came east toward the 
old hunting-grounds of his fathers. Being 
threatened by a United States force greater 
than his own, he cunningly sued for peace, and 
promised to keep the old treaty, which bound 
his tribe to remain on the west of the Missis- 
sippi Kiver. But this was only a pretext for 
gaining time to gather more warriors, and 
make greater preparations for the fight. The 
next spring he returned in great force. Being 
warned back by the general in command of the 
government troops, he sent an answer of defi- 
ance. This aroused the white people of the 



88 The Forest Boy. 

state, and the governor called for volunteers. 
Mr. Lincoln was among the first of his vicinity 
to enlist, and, when a company was made up, 
be was surprised by an invitation from many of 
his comrades to stand as a candidate in the 
election of its captain. There was but one 
other candidate, a man of influence in the 
county, who had at one time employed Mr. 
Lincoln, and treated him in an arbitrary and 
oppressive manner. The election was con- 
ducted in a peculiar way. The candidates took 
their places a little distance apart, and the 
members of the company walked up to and 
stood with the one they preferred. One after 
another marched to the side of Mr. Lincoln, 
until a large majority had thus voted for him. 
Most of the minority then left his opponent, 
making his election nearly unanimous. His 
old employer and opposer was keenly mortified, 
while Mr. Lincoln felt a glow of honest pride 
at his success. It was his first public honor, 
and from this time the world looked brighter, 
and the pathway full of encouragement. He 



The Forest Boy. 89 

frequently referred to it in subsequent years, 
and declared that no election of a later period 
so much gratified him. He had been largely 
indebted for this honor to his old opponents 
whom he had vanquished in boxing, wrestling, 
and running. 

Black Hawk was too shrewd to fight a de- 
cisive battle with his enemies, but broke his 
forces up into small bands, and ravaged the 
country. This compelled the volunteers to 
make long and forced marches without bring- 
ing the Indians to a fight, or seeing any imme- 
diate results of their toil and sacrifices. When, 
therefore, their thirty days of enlistment had 
expired, the most of them, declaring that they 
had seen enough of such warfare, accepted their 
discharge, and returned home. Mr. Lincoln, 
however, enlisted as a private for another thirty 
days, and at its expiration re-enlisted, and re- 
mained until the war closed. Black Hawk was 
pursued by a portion of the United States 
troops, and finally captured, with most of his 
fighting men. Mr. Lincoln was not in the 



90 The Forest Boy. 

fight, but returned home with a good name, 
the officers respecting him for his intelligence 
and fidelity to his responsibilities, and the 
soldiers loving him for his care of them as their 
commander, and for his story-telling, wrestling 
habits as a companion. 

In referring to this military experience in a 
political speech many years after, Mr. Lincoln 
playfully remarked, that though he was not on 
the battle-field during the fighting, he saw the 
place soon after ; and though he did not break 
his sword, not having any to break, he did 
bend his musket pretty badly at one time. He 
declared that, though he did not charge upon 
the Indians, not having seen any, he made 
charges upon the wild onions, and had many 
bloody struggles with the mosquitoes ; and, 
though never faint from the loss of blood, he 
was often truly very hungry. 

He had not been at home ten days before the 
election for the state legislature took place. 
Through the prompting of his late comrades in 
arms, he was put up as a candidate. This was 



The Forest Boy. 91 

an unexpected honor, and affected hiin greatly 
by its expression of good-will. As the ticket 
on which his name was placed was that of the 
party greatly in the minority in the county, he 
was not elected, but obtained nearly the entire 
vote of all parties in his immediate neighbor- 
hood where he was best known. 

Being now about twenty-eight years of age, 
he began to feel keenly the necessity of a more 
permanent employment, and seriously purposed 
to learn the blacksmith's trade ; but before he 
had taken any steps to carry out this intention, 
an opportunity occurred of entering into busi- 
ness with another person, with whom he united 
in buying out a stock of goods of a small retail 
store in New Salem. His friend, Mr. W. G. 
Greene, became security for the payment of the 
goods, which were purchased on credit. The 
partner proving worthless both in business and 
character, the enterprise entirely failed of suc- 
cess, and Mr. Greene was obliged to pay a large 
part of the indebtedness of the concern. The 
debt thus contracted to Greene, which Mr. Lin- 



92 The Forest Boy. 

coin humorously called " the national debt," he 
paid many years afterward to the uttermost 
penny, though his partner was equally respon- 
sible, and though the creditor had moved into 
Tennessee, and had well-nigh forgotten it. 

Mr. Lincoln being again out of business, 
since, as he remarked, his store was " winked 
out," he gladly accepted from President Jack- 
son an appointment as postmaster of a small 
office at New Salem. The income did not pay 
for constant attention to the office, so when he 
went out on other business he took the mail in 
the top of his hat. Persons inquiring for let- 
ters or papers hunted up the postmaster, who 
answered their inquiries after taking off his hat 
and turning over its contents. The greatest 
benefit he derived from this appointment was 
the privilege of reading all the papers taken 
in the vicinity, which were probably few in 
number. 

But the office was the occasion of a beautiful 
illustration of his honesty. It being either dis- 
continued or removed to a distant place, he 



The Forest Boy. 93 

squared up his accounts for a settlement with 
the government. Many years afterward, while 
sitting in a law office, a gentleman called and 
inquired for Abraham Lincoln. 't! am the 
man," said Mr. Lincoln, stepping forward. 
The gentleman then presented the government's 
bill against him. For a moment he looked 
perplexed. His friends, who were sitting by, 
observing this, offered to lend him the required 
sum. He made no reply, but his countenance 
suddenly lighted up with a happy thought. 
He went to his bookcase and took down a little 
trunk containing a small package of coin wrap- 
ped in a cotton rag. " How much is your 
demand ? " he inquired of the stranger. " Sev- 
enteen dollars," was the reply. The package 
was put into his hands containing just that 
amount. When the agent of the Post-Office 
department had left, Mr. Lincoln quietly re- 
marked that he never used money which did 
not belong to him. During much of the time 
in which this money had been thus laid by he 
had been very poor, and the temporary use of 



94 The Forest Boy. 

it would have been a great relief; but he had 
never indulged the thought of touching it. 

Again looking round for business, an unex- 
pected opening was presented. John Calhoun, 
then surveyor of Sangamon County, being much 
pressed with business, offered to employ Mr. 
Lincoln. The latter knew nothing of surveying, 
but- he resolved to learn. Borrowing some 
books of Mr. Calhoun, he bent his strong will 
and clear intellect to the work. He was soon 
ready to begin, and received from his employer 
the business near New Salem. He procured a 
compass and a chain, (or, as some say, a grape- 
vine instead of a chain,) and commenced his 
new employment. 

This was a progressive step in his career. 
He continued in the business more than twelve 
months, sparing no pains to render his services 
profitable to his employers and creditable to 
himself, and he had the satisfaction of knowing, 
many years afterward, that though he had laid 
out one whole township, the accuracy of his 
work was never questioned. 



The Forest Boy. 95 

His engagements as a surveyor received one 
unpleasant interruption. His compass and 
chain were taken and sold for a debt growing 
out of the unfortunate partnership concern. But 
they fell into the hands of a friend, who quietly 
restored them to him. 



96 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XI. 

WINNING HIS "WAY. 

Mr. Lincoln steadily increased in the favor of 
the people. Those who saw him most fre- 
quently were most deeply impressed with his 
goodness of heart and greatness of mind. His 
old friend, Offutt, who had observed him closely 
in his store, exclaimed in enthusiastic admira- 
tion, " Lincoln knows more than any man in 
the United States." 

The governor of Indiana, after a'conversa-" 
tion with him, was astonished at his under- 
standing and the extent of his information, and 
declared that the young man had talents enough 
for a president of the United States. 

His friend Greene was so impressed with his 
greatness, that, when he was spending a college 
vacation at New Salem, he took the occasion to 
introduce him to some college friends, among 



The Forest Boy. 97 

whom was Mr. Richard Yates, afterward gov- 
ernor of Illinois. They found Lincoln lying 
upon his back on a cellar-door, reading a news- 
paper, his hands, as usual, hard with the toils of 
labor, and his face blackened by exposure to 
the sun and wind. The college boys were 
doubtless amused that their friend Greene should 
esteem such a man one of the New Salem 
" lions ;" but a short interview led them fully to 
accord with his high estimation. Mr. Lincoln 
entertained the visitors by quotations from a 
volume of Burns's poems, the whole of which 
seemed stored in his memory, and surprised them 
by his familiarity with Shakspeare and keen 
perception of his beauties. Greene invited 
Lincoln to dine with him in company with the 
college boys. Feeling awkward at the table in 
consequence of the presence of those to whom 
his modesty attributed great superiority, he up- 
set his bowl of bread and milk ; but his friend, 
Mrs. Greene, playfully diverted the attention of 
the company, and relieved his embarrassment. 
A trait of Mr. Lincoln's character, which be- 



98 The Forest Boy. 

came very marked in subsequent life, began 
especially to attract notice at this time. This 
was his readiness to devise means to overcome 
great and unexpected obstacles in the way of 
the accomplishment of anything which he had 
undertaken. 

He was one day in the Sangamon River try- 
ing to float a flatboat over a milldam. "With 
his pantaloons rolled up above his knees, he 
jumped into the shallow water, and, putting his 
shoulder to the stern of the boat, pushed its 
prow over the dam. Here it struck fast, being 
partially filled with water, and consequently too 
heavy for even his great strength. Bailing it 
out was the most apparent way of relieving the 
difficulty, but this would take much time and 
labor. Mr. Lincoln seized an auger, which was 
at hand, and bored a hole in that part of the 
bottom which projected over the dam, thus let- 
ting the water run out ; then, plugging up the 
hole, he easily pushed the boat into the river 
below the falls, and continued his voyage. 

Mr. Lincoln was one day in Springfield 



The Forest Boy. 99 

attending a book auction, when his attention 
was arrested by a copy of Blackstone. He im- 
mediately bought it, and carried it home with 
much the same feelings which he had in his 
boyhood on finding a copy of the Life of Wash- 
ington. His friends had, in a complimentary 
manner, often said, " Lincoln, you would make 
a capital lawyer." He doubtless felt that God 
had given him a power of occupying a public 
position ; and, thus moved, he read this volume 
with absorbing interest. But a new opening 
for promotion soon occurred. Two years had 
passed away since his failure of an election to 
the state legislature. In 1834 he was again 
nominated to represent Sangamon County. The 
custom in the West requiring candidates to 
lecture among the people on questions of public 
interest, he bought a horse to enable him to 
visit the several towns and villages of his dis- 
trict for this purpose, selling his compass and 
chain to procure the necessary funds. When 
the canvass was over he sold his horse and pur- 
chased his instruments again. This time his 



100 The Forest Boy. 

nomination was a success, resulting in his elec- 
tion by an unusually large majority. 

During these electioneering tours Mr. Lin- 
coln renewed his acquaintance with Mr. John 
T. Stuart, a lawyer of large practice in Spring- 
field, who had been with him in the Black 
Hawk war. Mr. Stuart was confirmed in his 
previous conviction that Mr. Lincoln was a re- 
markable young man, and he advised him to 
study law, offering to lend him books for this 
purpose. By this encouragement his earlier 
resolutions in the same direction were strength- 
ened, and he walked to Springfield, a distance 
of twenty-two miles, obtained " a back-load " of 
books, and returned the same day to New 
Salem. 

He now alternated between surveying and 
studying, doing just enough of the former to 
keep himself economically fed and clothed. 
His favorite place of study was under an oak on 
a hillside, where he had u subdued " Kirkham's 
grammar. Here, lying on the ground, only 
changing his position to keep in the shade, he 



The Forest Boy. 101 

became so absorbed in the great principles of 
the law that he was in a measure lost to the 
common affairs of life. In fact, those persons 
who did not understand his character called 
him partially insane. He cared little for this, 
and still less for the ordinary social enjoyments 
of life, of which he now mostly denied himself, 
as he mastered, one after another, the founda- 
tion truths of his chosen profession. 

When the time came for the commencement 
of the legislature, Mr. Lincoln took his personal 
effects upon his shoulders and walked to Van- 
dalia, the capital of the state, a distance of one 
hundred miles. 

He was the youngest member of the House, 
with one exception, and, of course, entirely 
unacquainted with the forms of law-making. 
He therefore wisely made no speeches, but 
observed closely the details of the daily busi- 
ness. A friend of this period says that his 
modesty was seen and acknowledged by all. 
This attractive quality lessened the unfavora- 
ble impression made upon strangers by his 
7 



102 The Forest Boy. 

person and manner. His dress was " Kentucky- 
jean," made in the style of the times, and, 
however unpretending, was a great improve- 
ment over his apparel of any former occasion. 

When the session was over he walked back 
to New Salem and resumed his studies and 
surveying. 

In 1836 he was again a candidate for the 
legislature, and during the canvass became 
more prominently before the people. He 
wrote for the political papers statements of his 
sentiments, and held public discussions with his 
opponents. One of these is remembered for 
the successful manner with which he conducted 
it, securing victory from seeming defeat. Mr. 
Lincoln was associated on the occasion with an 
able friend, who was to take an equal share on 
his side of the discussion. This friend had 
spoken, and been fiercely assailed in reply by 
a keen opponent. The friend, chafing under 
the attack, desired to repel it immediately. 
But it was Mr. Lincoln's turn, and he, feeling 
the full inspiration of the occasion, could not 



The Forest Boy. 103 

give way. He ascended the platform, and 
commenced in a slow, argumentative manner. 
His friends at first appeared anxious, and his 
opponents retained briefly the air of triumph 
inspired by the last speaker ; but Mr. Lincoln 
gradually showed the weakness of his antago- 
nist's positions by strong arguments, plainly 
and forcibly presented, and won the favorable 
convictions of the audience. Having exposed 
his false reasoning, he heaped contempt upon 
it by wit and ridicule, his tall figure becoming 
erect as he proceeded, while his countenance 
lost its habitually sad expression, and his eye 
its mildness, as the fire of eloquence flashed 
from every feature of his face. The audience 
interrupted him by frequent and loud applause. 
His triumph was complete, and his reputation 
was greatly increased as one of the ablest 
debaters of the state. 

On his return to the legislature he took a 
more active part than during its previous term. 
The antislavery question was just beginning 
seriously to divide the two great political par- 



104 The Forest Boy. 

ties. Neither of them was willing to own the 
hated name of abolitionist, and both sought the 
favor of the slaveholders. 

A set of resolutions strongly in this spirit 
passed the legislature, with only two opposing 
votes, those of Abraham Lincoln and Dan 
Stone, both of Sangamon County. They 
entered upon the journal of the House their 
protest against them, written, it is understood, 
by the former. It was his first antislavery 
record, and a good one. It stated moderately 
his views on the peculiar institution, and the 
questions connected with it. They were, as far 
as they went, such as he avowed when elected 
President, and as he maintained through life. 
It required moral courage to publish them at 
this time and in this manner, for they were 
unpopular even among his own political friends. 

When the session was over he walked home, 
in company with the other representatives 
from Sangamon County. The whole delega- 
tion, nine in number, were remarkably tall, 
none of them being less than six feet. The 



The Forest Boy. 105 

wits called tliera " the long nine." The com- 
pany traveled on horseback, except Mr. Lin- 
coln, who kept up with them on foot. His 
dress was thin, and he complained on the way 
of being cold. One of his companions, looking 
roguishly at his large feet, drily replied, "Of 
course you must be cold, there's so much of you 
on the ground." Mr. Lincoln enjoyed the joke, 
and laughed as heartily as any of them. He 
was ever ready, with pleasant story or humor- 
ous remark, to relieve the weariness of the way. 
Mr. Lincoln was again out of business, but he 
stood in a position in advance of any he had 
before occupied. He had obtained a fair 
knowledge of the common branches of an En- 
glish education ; he had read several works on 
scientific subjects, giving special attention to 
geology ; he had become known through the 
state as a popular debater, and an able poli- 
tician ; and he was fairly initiated into the 
forms of practical legislation. He was there- 
fore prepared for the wider sphere upon which 
he was about to enter. 



106 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XII. 

"RIDING THE CIRCUIT." 

Mr. Lincoln became a lawyer in 1836, and the 
following spring was invited by his old friend, 
Major Stuart, of Springfield, to enter his office 
as a partner. This was an unexpected and 
pleasant compliment. He was without experi- 
ence, and without extensive reading in the law, 
and only twenty-eight years of age. Major 
Stuart was favorably known as a lawyer, and 
was established in a large practice. 

Mr. Lincoln removed to Springfield, and 
became a member of the family of a gentleman 
of high social standing. The people of Spring- 
field remembered their indebtedness to his 
influence in the removal of the state capital to 
their city, aud expressed their gratitude by 
electing him to the legislature of 1838-40. lie 



The Forest Boy. 107 

the legislative term, declined further honors of 
this kind. 

During his eight years of membership of the 
legislature he rose constantly in influence, 
commanding the entire vote of his party 
for the speakership. He was, in fact, recog- 
nized as their leader in the House. His 
speeches were strong in argument, clear in 
statement, striking, and often beautiful in illus- 
tration. His pleasantry and keen wit fixed the. 
attention of the most indifferent. "When occa- 
sion required, he could silence an opponent by 
sarcasm and ridicule. The following is an 
illustration : A certain member of the House 
constantly indulged in quibbling objections to 
proposed measures. He saw a violation of the 
Constitution of the state where others saw only 
conformity to its requirements. Mr. Lincoln's 
friends said to him, " Lincoln, you can silence 
that man, and you ought to do it." "I'll try," 
he replied, his countenance lighting with a 
humorous expression. Quite soon there was an 
opportunity. Mr. Lincoln had proposed a bill 



108 The Forest Boy. 

which the watchful member denounced as un- 
constitutional. Mr. Lincoln arose to reply, 
and, with a laughable kind of gravity, said that 
the gentleman reminded him of a man in his 
neighborhood, whom he described in such a 
manner that all eyes were turned toward his 
opponent as the person intended. " Now this 
man," he continued, " while dressing one morn- 
ing, looked out of the window and saw a squir- 
rel, as he thought, on the limb of a tree near 
the house. Seizing his rifle, he fired at it, but, 
to his astonishment, the saucy animal was 
neither hit nor frightened. He fired again and 
again, but there the squirrel remained with 
provoking coolness. The man, looking at his 
gun and then at the tree, exclaimed to his 
son, who stood at his side, ' Boy, what's the 
matter with my gun that I can't shoot that 
squirrel ? ' 

" ' Don't see any squirrel,' replied the boy. 

" 'Don't see any squirrel! there he sits half 
up that tree ! ' 

" ' No, lather,' replied the son, looking into 



The Forest Boy. 109 

his father's face, ' there aint any squirrel ; it's a 
louse on your eyebrow that you see.' " 

The members enjoyed a hearty laugh at the 
offender's expense, and he troubled them no 
more. 

When not in the legislature, Mr. Lincoln 
was pursuing his studies and practice, and soon 
became known as a successful pleader. He 
delighted to advocate the case of those whom 
he knew to be wronged, but would not defend 
the cause of the guilty. If he discovered, in 
the course of the trial, that he was on the wrong 
side, he lost all interest, and ceased to make any 
exertion. 

Once, while engaged with an associate in a 
prosecution, he became satisfied that their 
client's cause was not a good one, and he 
refused to make the plea. His associate, less 
scrupulous, persisted, and obtained a decision 
in their favor. The fee was nine hundred dol- 
lars, half of which was tendered to Mr. Lincoln, 
but he refused to accept a single cent of it. 

His honesty was strongly illustrated by the 



110 The Forest Boy. 

way lie kept his accounts with his law partner. 
When he had taken a fee in his absence, he put 
one half of it into his own pocket, and folded 
up the other half^ putting it away carefully by 
itself, labeled " Billy," the name by which he 
familiarly addressed him. One day his partner 
asked him why he did not make a record of the 
amount and for the time use the whole. " Be- 
cause," replied Mr. Lincoln, " I promised my 
mother never to use money belonging to another 
person." 

He had another singular habit as a lawyer. 
Having studied both sides of the case he was 
managing, when he stood up in court to defend 
it, he presented with perfect fairness all that 
could be said against as well as for his position. 
When, therefore, his opponent rose to speak, 
he found, to his great embarrassment, his argu- 
ments already anticipated and answered. 

This fairness, together with his good-nature 
and aptness at story telling, made him a favorite 
among all the men of his profession. It was 
the practice of the lawyers to follow the judge 



The Forest Boy. Ill 

through the district he traveled to attend the 
courts, they going on horseback or in " gigs." 
This they called "riding the circuit." They 
put up together at the country taverns, and ex- 
pected a merry time when Mr. Lincoln appeared 
among them. We cannot say that on such 
occasions he always told such stories as the 
good and pure could fully approve. Abraham 
Lincoln learned, as all in similar circumstances 
will learn, that " evil communications corrupt 
good manners ; " and he was quick to follow 
the better way when favored with the example 
of those of higher culture and stricter morals. 

In the early part of his career as a lawyer 
he was engaged in a case which caused much 
amusement, and showed his aptness in putting 
the truth in the most striking light. There 
were two men of one neighborhood each of 
whom owned a mare and its colt. The colts 
resembled each other in a very remarkable 
manner, and, having both strayed away, it was 
natural that, on the return of one only, each 
owner should claim it as his animal. Thirty- 



112 The Forest Boy. 

four men testified on the side of one claimant, 
and thirty were equally confident in giving their 
testimony for the other. All the witnesses were 
good and true men, and all had known the colts 
well. Thus puzzled, they very sensibly agreed 
to leave the decision to the mothers of the colts. 
On an appointed day the mares were brought 
to a public place, and a large company assem- 
bled to witness the decision. The colt was 
brought forward with the mare it had met in 
a pasture when it returned, and with which it 
had since been living on familiar terms, not 
having during this time seen the other one; 
the other mare was then introduced to the 
inclosure, and instantly the colt sprang to her 
side, with earnest demonstrations of joy. No 
efforts could cause it to express a different 
choice, or to hesitate in its preference. Nature 
had spoken, and all were satisfied except the 
selfish claimant on the other side ; he appealed 
to the law. 

Mr. Lincoln, in arguing the case for the 
defendant, made the following ingenious state- 



The Forest Boy. 113 

ment : " Here, gentlemen," he said, " is a case 
concerning which a large number of honest 
men differ. Thirty-four men are against my 
client, while on his side are thirty men and the 
conduct of the colt. You may not feel sure 
which is right, but you must decide in favor of 
that side which you think is most likely to be 
right. Now, gentlemen, on which side would 
you be willing to bet ? on which most readily 
risk a picayune? The side on which you 
would risk a picayune is the side in favor of 
which you must give your decision." 

The jury were plain men, and this was an 
easy test which aided them in deciding the 
case, and they gave it at once to Mr. Lincoln's 
client. 



114 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE RESCUE. 

While Mr. Lincoln was studying law he found 
an occasional home in the caBin of a man 
whose name was Armstrong, the same person 
whom the Clary's Grove boys had chosen to lay 
him upon his back in a wrestling match when 
he first came to New Salem. It will be recol- 
lected that Armstrong had found more than his 
equal in fair play ; but he begged Lincoln to 
call it " a drawn game," and was ever after his 
fast friend. 

Many years had passed away, and Armstrong 
had died, leaving his widow and children de- 
pendent mainly upon his eldest son. An inci- 
dent in connection with this son gave occasion 
for Mr. Lincoln to show his characteristic ability 
and goodness. The story is thus told by one 
witnessing most of the circumstances : " A 



The Forest Boy. 115 

young man had been killed in a riotous and 
confused fight in the night time at a camp- 
meeting, and one of his associates stated that 
the death wound was inflicted by young Arm- 
strong. A preliminary examination was gone 
into, at which the accuser testified so positively, 
that there seemed no doubt of the guilt of the 
prisoner, and therefore he was held for trial. 
As is too often the case, the bloody act caused 
an undue degree of excitement in the public 
mind. Every improper incident in the life of 
the prisoner, each act which bore the least 
semblance to rowdyism, each schoolboy quarrel, 
was suddenly remembered and magnified, until 
they pictured him as a fiend of the most horri- 
ble hue. As these rumors spread abroad they 
were received as gospel truth, and a 'feverish 
desire for vengeance seized upon the infatuated, 
populace, while only prison bars prevented a 
horrible death at the hands of a mob. 

" The events were heralded in the county 
papers, painted in the highest colors, accom- 
panied by rejoicings over the certainty of 



116 The Forest Boy. 

punishment being meted out to the guilty 
party. 

" The prisoner, overwhelmed by the circum- 
stances under which he found himself placed, 
fell into a melancholy condition bordering on 
despair, and the widowed mother, looking 
through her tears, saw no cause for hope from 
earthly aid. 

" At this juncture the widow received a letter 
from Mr. Lincoln, volunteering his service in 
an effort to save the youth from the impending 
stroke. Gladly was his aid accepted, although 
it seemed impossible for even his sagacity to 
prevail in such a desperate case ; but the heart 
of the attorney was in his work, and he set 
about it with a will that knew no such word as 
fail. Feeling that the poisoned condition of 
the public mind was such as to preclude the 
possibility of impanneling an impartial jury in 
the court having jurisdiction, he procured a 
change of place and a postponement of the 
trial. He then went studiously to work, un- 
raveling the history of the case, and satisfied 



The Forest Boy. 117 

himself that his client was a victim of malice, 
and that the statements of the accuser were a 
tissue of falsehoods. 

" When the trial was called on, the prisoner, 
pale and emaciated, with hopelessness written 
on every feature, and accompanied by his half- 
hoping, half-despairing mother, whose only hope 
was in a mother's belief of her son's innocence, 
in the justice of the God she worshiped, and 
in the noble counsel, who, without hope of fee 
or reward upon earth, had undertaken the 
cause, took his seat in the prisoner's box, and 
with a stony firmness, listened to the reading 
of the indictment. Lincoln sat quietly by, 
while the large auditory looked on him as 
though wondering what he could say in de- 
fense of one whose guilt they regarded as 
certain. 

" The examination of witnesses for the state 
was begun, and a well-arranged mass of evi- 
dence, circumstantial and positive, was intro- 
duced, which seemed to inclose the prisoner 

beyond the possibility of escape. The counsel 

8 



118 The Forest Boy. 

for the defense propounded but few questions, 
and those of a character which excited no un- 
easiness on the part of the opposing lawyer, 
merely, in most cases, requiring the main wit- 
nesses to be definite as to the time and place. 
When the evidence against the prisoner was 
ended, Lincoln introduced a few witnesses to 
remove some wrong impressions in regard to 
the previous character of Armstrong, who, 
though somewhat rowdyish, had never been 
known to commit a vicious act ; to show also 
that a greater degree of ill feeling existed be- 
tween the prisoner and his accuser, than be- 
tween the prisoner and the person who was 
killed. 

" The prosecutor felt that the case was a clear 
one, and his opening speech was brief and for- 
mal. Lincoln arose, while a deathly silence 
pervaded the vast audience, and, in a clear and 
moderate tone, began his argument. Slowly 
and carefully he reviewed the testimony, point- 
ing out the hitherto unobserved discrepancies 
in the statements of the principal witness. 



The Forest Boy. 119 

That which seemed plain and plausible lie 
made appear as crooked as a serpent's path. 
The witness had said that the affair took place 
at a certain hour in the evening, and that by 
the aid of a brightly shining moon, he saw the 
prisoner inflict the death-blow by a slung-shot. 
Mr. Lincoln showed that at the hour referred 
to the moon had not yet appeared above the 
horizon, and consequently the whole tale was a 
fabrication. 

"An almost instantaneous change seemed to 
have been wrought in the minds of his auditors, 
and the verdict of ' not guilty ' was at the end 
of every tongue. But the advocate was not 
content with this intellectual achievement. 
His whole being had for months been bound 
up in this work of gratitude and mercy ; and as 
the lava of the overcharged crater bursts from 
its imprisonment, so great thoughts and burn- 
ing words leaped forth from the soul of the 
eloquent Lincoln. He drew a picture of the 
perjurer so horrid and ghastly that the accuser 
could sit under it no longer, but reeled and 



120 The Forest Boy. 

staggered from the court-room, while the au- 
dience fancied they could see the brand upon 
his brow. Then, in words of thrilling pathos, 
Lincoln appealed to the jurors, as the fathers of 
sons who might become fatherless, and hus- 
bands of wives who might be widowed, to yield 
to no previous impressions, no ill-founded pre- 
judice, but to do the prisoner justice; and as 
he alluded to the debt of gratitude he owed to 
the boy's father, tears were seen to fall from 
many eyes. 

" It was near night when he concluded by 
saying that if justice was done, as he believed 
it would be, before the sun should set it would 
sliine upon the prisoner a free man. The jury 
retired, and the court adjourned for the day. 
Half an hour had not elapsed when, as the 
officers of the court and the volunteer attorney 
sat at the table of their hotel, a messenger an- 
nounced that the jury had returned to their 
seats. All repaired immediately to the court- 
house, and while the prisoner was coming from 
the fail, the court-room was tilled to overflow- 



The Forest Boy. 121 

ing with citizens from the town. When the 
prisoner and his mother entered, silence reigned 
as completely as if the house had been empty. 
The foreman of the jury, in answer to the usual 
inquiry from the court, delivered the verdict of 
'not guilty.' The widow dropped into the 
arms of her son, who lifted her up, and told 
her to look upon him as before, free and inno- 
cent. Then with the words, 'Where is Mr. 
Lincoln ? ' he rushed across the room and 
grasped the hand of his deliverer, while his 
heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln 
turned his eyes toward the west, where the 
sun was still lingering in view, and then turn- 
ing to the youth, said, ' It is not yet sundown, 
and you are free.' " 



122 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTEK XIV. 

FURTHER INCIDENTS OF '-THE CIRCUIT." 

The story of " the rescue " is only one among 
many evidences of Abraham Lincoln's kindness 
of heart during his career as a lawyer. Even 
the sufferings of a brute excited his pity. 

He was once riding his circuit in a " a gig " 
alone, and while crossing a stream skirted with 
deep mud he saw a pig almost buried in the 
mire. The poor thing was nearly exhausted, 
and its feeble struggles pleaded touchingly for 
assistance. Mr. Lincoln looked at the pig, and 
then at the new suit of clothes which he had 
just begun to wear. He certainly could not 
help the pig without spoiling the clothes ; be- 
sides, he said to himself, it's only ajiig ! Thus 
endeavoring to satisfy his sense of right, he 
rode on. But the suffering brute was still be- 
fore him, causing a most unpleasant burden of 



The Forest Boy. 123 

mind. When he had rode two miles, so dissat- 
isfied did he feel that he turned back to the 
stream. Tying his horse to a tree, taking off 
his coat, boots, and stockings, and rolling up his 
pants, he gathered rails from a fence in the vi- 
cinity, and built a foot-road to the pig. He 
then laid hold of him and dragged him from 
his perilous situation, much to the disparage- 
ment of his new pants. The pig no doubt 
grunted his thanks ; but his deliverer was un- 
generous enough to himself as he rode on, 
pondering, as he remarked afterward, upon 
" the philosophy of the incident," to refer his 
benevolent act to the low desire of getting rid 
of his own burden of mind ! 

"When Mr. Lincoln had become established in 
his law practice, and had attained considerable 
popularity, he did not forget his humble rela- 
tions, and the poor among his acquaintance of 
earlier years. He often walked many miles, and 
neglected more distinguished company, to visit 
such friends. 

As he was going out one evening, after a 



124 The Forest Boy. 

hard day's work in court, to call upon an old 
lady, his companions tried to persuade him to 
remain with them, urging that the distance was 
great, that he was weary, and that they desired 
his company. " O, I must go," he replied res- 
olutely, " aunty's heart would break if I left 
town without calling upon her." 

Those who were unfortunate in person or 
purse always excited Mr. Lincoln's sympathy. 
A Mr. Cogdal became embarrassed in business, 
and having employed him to settle up his 
aifairs, gave him, at the close, a note for the 
amount of his fee. Not long after Mr. Cogdal 
was blown up by the accidental discharge of 
some gunpowder, and lost the use of his arm. 
Thus poor and crippled, he met Mr. Lincoln 
one day, who inquired kindly after his welfare. 
Cogdal replied, "I am getting along poor 
enough, and I have been thinking about that 
note." Mr. Lincoln interrupted him by taking 
the note from his pocket and saying, as he put 
it into his hand, " There, think no more about 
it." Cogdal was about to decline the gener- 



The Forest Boy. 125 

ous offer, but Mr. Lincoln walked abruptly 
away. 

A widow of a revolutionary soldier came into 
Mr. Lincoln's law office in great trouble. She 
had employed a pension agent to obtain her 
claim against the government, and he had 
charged her two hundred dollars for his services. 
When, on careful inquiry, he found that there 
could be no doubt about her statement, he was 
very indignant. Giving the woman money 
enough to pay her stage-fare in returning home 
to a neighboring town, he commenced a suit 
against the dishonest agent. In addressing the 
jury, to whom the case was committed, he set 
forth in eloquent words the poverty of the aged 
widow, and the debt the country owed to those 
who, like her husband, had fought for its inde- 
pendence. The case was decided in her favor, 
and Mr. Lincoln had the pleasure of seeing the 
agent return her a hundred dollars. 

The negroes ever found in Mr. Lincoln, even 
at this early period of the antislavery move- 
ment, a faithful friend. A negro mother called 



126 The Forest Boy. 

upon him in great anguish. Her story was 
this : She and her family were brought by her 
master from Kentucky into Illinois, and set free. 
Her oldest son, upon whom she was dependent, 
had gone down the Mississippi on a steamboat 
as a waiter. On his arrival at New Orleans he 
unwisely went ashore, and was arrested and 
thrown into prison, for no reason, except that 
he was a free negro from a non-slaveholding 
state. This outrage was further aggravated by 
a threatened sale into slavery to pay his jail 
expenses. The feelings of Mr. Lincoln were 
aroused. He went at once to the governor, 
to inquire if he could render any official aid to 
the young man. The governor replied that he 
was sorry to say that he could do nothing. 
The powerful passions of Mr. Lincoln lost their 
usual restraint, and found expression in lan- 
guage he seldom used. He declared he would 
have the negro back or have a twenty years' 
agitation in Illinois ; the people should be stirred 
up until the governor was invested with consti- 
tutional authority in such matters. 



The Forest Boy. 127 

But it was well for the young colored man 
that he was not compelled to wait the results of 
a twenty years' agitation. Upon a sober sec- 
ond thought, Mr. Lincoln and his partner made 
up a purse and sent it to a New Orleans cor- 
respondent, who procured the negro's release and 
returned him to his mother. 

Defending those who had been engaged in 
helping negroes to escape from their oppressors 
was a very unpopular service, not only in Illi- 
nois, but in all the states. Those lawyers espe- 
cially who sought office at the hands of the 
politicians kept clear of so ruinous a business. 
A distinguished lawyer in Mr. Lincoln's own 
neighborhood, who has since occupied a promi- 
nent place before the country, candidly declared 
that he could not afford such benevolence. But 
an earnest worker on " the underground rail- 
road " used to say to those needing such aid, 
" Go to Abraham Lincoln. He's not afraid of 
an unpopular case. Other lawyers may refuse, 
but if he is at home he will help you." 

Mr. Lincoln was defending a man who was 



128 The Forest Boy. 

sued for fraud in delivering to a purchaser a 
number of sheep. He had agreed to deliver 
those of a certain age only, but was accused 
of shuffling off in the stipulated number many- 
much younger. In the course of the examina- 
tion Mr. Lincoln became convinced that his client 
had actually done as he was accused. Instead 
of further attempts to prove his innocence, he 
immediately confined his efforts to ascertaining 
how many had been so returned, thus determin- 
ing the real damage. 

At another time he was conducting a pros- 
ecution against a railroad company, and suc- 
ceeded in getting a decision in favor of his 
client for the amount claimed, after the de- 
duction of a certain sum which he had agreed 
should be thrown off. When the judge was 
about to make the final settlement, Mr. Lincoln 
arose and remarked that his opponents had not 
proved all that could be proved on their side, 
and he then proceeded to argue against his cli- 
ent for a further deduction due in equity, and 
the case was thus settled. 



The Forest Boy. 120 

Years afterward, when the lawyers and 
judges with whom he was associated stood up 
before a great assembly of weeping citizens to 
pronounce Mr. Lincoln's eulogy, they remem- 
bered these rare excellences, and spoke of him 
with sincere and eloquent words. 



130 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XV. 

AT HIS OWN HOME. 

We have followed the history of Mr. Lincoln 
to the year 1842. He was now thirty-three 
years of age; he was well established in his 
profession, and had risen from poverty to an in- 
come which placed him at least in circumstances 
of independence. He had earned an extensive 
reputation as a lawyer, a politician, and public 
speaker. Now, perhaps for the first time, he 
felt that his position would warrant him in 
getting a home of his own. He was married in 
November, 1842, to Miss Mary Todd, of Lex- 
ington, Ky., but at this time residing in Spring- 
field. His nature turned fondly to the domestic 
circle, and his loving heart found happiness 
around his own hearthstone. The following 
letter written at this time to a friend, shows 
how congenial was his new relation: 



The Foeest Boy. 131 

" We are not keeping house, but boarding at 
the Globe Tavern, which is very well kept now 
by a widow of the name of Beck. Our rooms 
are the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, and 
boarding only costs four dollars a week. . . . 
I must heartily wish you and your Fanny will 
not fail to come. Just let us know the time, a 
week in advance, and we will have a room 
prepared for you, and we'll all be merry to- 
gether for a while." 

In February preceding his marriage he thus 
writes to another intimate friend: 

"Tours of the 16th, announcing that you 

and Miss are no longer twain, but one flesh, 

reached me this morning. I have no way of tell- 
ing you how much happiness I wish you both, 
though I believe you both can conceive it. I feel 
somewhat jealous of both of you now, for you will 
be so exclusively concerned for one another 
that I shall be forgotten entirely. My acquaint- 
ance with Miss was too short for me to rea- 
sonably hope to be remembered by her; and still 



132 The Forest Boy. 

I am sure I shall not soon forget her. Try if 
you cannot remind her of that debt she owes 
me, and be sure you do not interfere to prevent 
her paying it. 

" I regret to learn that you have resolved not 
to return to Illinois. I shall be very lonesome 
without you. How miserably things seem to 
be arranged in this world! If we have no 
friends we have no pleasure; and if we have 
them we are sure to lose them, and to be 
doubly pained by the loss. I did hope that she 
and you would make your home here, yet I 
own I have no right to insist. You owe obliga- 
tions to her ten thousand times more sacred 
than you can owe to others, and in that light 
let them be respected and observed. It is 
natural that you should desire to remain with 
her relations and friends. As to friends, s/ie 
could not need them anywhere; she would 
have them in abundance here. Give my kind 

regards to Mr. and his family, particularly 

to Miss E. ; also" to your mother, brothers, and 
sisters. Ask little E. D. if she will ride to 



The Forest Boy. 133 

town with me when I come there again. And 
finally, give a double reciprocation of all the 
love she sent me. Write me often, and believe 
me yours forever, " Lincoln." 

This playful feeling was largely manifested 

in later years toward his family, especially when 

his heart's warm affection became absorbed in 

his children. These were four, all sons ; Eobert 

Todd, who has become known to the country as 

an officer in its service under General Grant ; 

Edward, who died in infancy ; "William, whose 

death will be more particularly noticed in 

another chapter ; and Thomas. The love of 

Mr. Lincoln for his children was indulged to 

weakness. When the youngest was in his arms, 

and before he had received a name, he fondly 

called him " Tadpole." This was afterward 

shortened to " Tad," and by that name he has. 

ever been known. When his children did 

wrong his chiding seldom assumed a greater 

severity than the exclamation, " O, you break 

my heart when you act like this ! " But this 
9 



134 The Forest Boy. 

love and grief, manifested in his tone and 
countenance, were powerful in causing penitence 
and reformation in the erring child. 

A man who lived in Springfield when a school- 
boy, at an early period of Mr. Lincoln's family 
history, gives an interesting reminiscence of his 
parental affection. His way to school led by 
Mr. Lincoln's door, and almost every fair day 
he saw him on the sidewalk in front of his 
house, hatless and coatless, and with shoes of 
the roughtest kind, dragging his little one to 
and fro in a child's carriage. His hands lay 
upon his back, holding the carriage, and his 
head and shoulders were bent forward as he 
strode along, seeming, as was doubtless the 
case, to be revolving in his mind some great 
subject. The school-boy looked on with interest, 
wondering how so rough a man happened to 
live in so fine a house. 

Mr. Lincoln loved children wherever he met 
them. The pastor, at this period, of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church in Springfield, says 
that he recollects seeing Mr. Lincoln stop, as 




i j i 



ZJi%j0 



9$ 



Dragging the Wagon 



The Forest Boy. 137 

he was passing the parsonage, and toss pennies 
to his children who were playing in the yard, 
seeming to enjoy heartily their glee in picking 
them up. 

It was quite a habit with Mr. Lincoln at this 
time to be lost in thought. While at his own 
table he would, not unfrequently, seem lost to 
the fact that the food was going into his mouth ; 
and, when his current of thought was arrested, 
and his mind came back to his situation, he 
would in a pleasant manner quote a familiar 
piece of poetry, or a line or two from a favorite 
author, thus making a good retreat from his 
awkward position. 

Sometimes Mr. Lincoln passed a familiar 
friend in the street with a very vacant look 
of recognition, if indeed he noticed him at all. 
When stopped and aroused from his absorbing 
revery, he would exclaim, " O, excuse me, I 
have been thinking ! " He would then proceed 
to unfold a train of close thought upon some 
great national subject. 

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed giving his family a 



138 The Forest Boy. 

pleasant surprise, and he entered fully into 
their gladness when they thus surprised him. 
Once, while he was for a considerable time 
away upon his circuit, Mrs. Lincoln had an 
important alteration made in their house. He 
enjoyed telling the story in his own humorous 
way. " When I returned," he said, " I started 
from the depot to go to Mrs. Lincoln's ; but I 
couldn't find it. I looked around, thinking I 
knew where she lived, but I could not see the 
place. Finally I inquired of some one, ' Can 
you tell me where Mrs. Lincoln lives? and he 
pointed the house out to me." 

Whenever his public duties allowed, especially 
at the intervals of his holding office, Mr. Lincoln 
applied his mind to the acquirement of some 
new branch of knowledge. As he became more 
acquainted with men of learning, and as he was 
pushed forward by the people into places of 
greater responsibility, he felt more keenly his 
want of early educational advantages. Under 
this prompting he no doubt became better 
educated, in every true sense, than most grad- 



The Forest Boy. 139 

uates of college. His remarkable memory, 
which retained in detail what he had learned, and 
his clear understanding of every subject, gave 
him an advantage in the pursuit of knowledge 
over the mass of even studious men. His 
privileges were small, but his mental capac- 
ity was great. He did not come before the 
public, even in his earliest offices, an ignorant 
man, but a very intelligent one, especially 
in regard to the duties he was expected to 
perform. 

In his early professional career he began the 
study of geometry. He had often heard in dis- 
cussions the word " demonstrate," and he determ- 
ined to understand it fully. He persevered 
until he could " demonstrate " promptly any 
proposition of the first six books of Euclid. He 
is said to have learned mathematics with great 
facility, and he might perhaps have become dis- 
tinguished in this branch of study under favor- 
ing circumstances. 

Mr. Lincoln early manifested a mechanical 
taste. He not only built log-cabins and fiat- 



140 The Forest Boy. 

boats, but other useful things requiring more 
skill. During some months of leisure, after he 
became the head of a family, he diverted himself 
in endeavoring to invent an attachment for the 
bottom of the steamboats of the western rivers, 
which should buoy them up in shoal water. He 
produced something which he thought would 
answer. It was a kind of bellows, which, when 
fastened to the bottom, could be filled with air or 
emptied as required. By this means he thought 
that the vessel might avoid the danger of sud- 
den changes in the depth of the water. A 
rough model, which seemed in part to be 
" whittled " out, was sent to Washington and a 
patent obtained. The model may now be seen 
in the Patent Office, but we have not heard 
that the invention was ever tried upon the bot- 
tom of a steamboat. 

At a later period he wrote a lecture upon 
inventions, giving their history from him "who 
was the father of all such as handle the harp 
and organ," and from him "who was an in- 
structor of every artificer in brass and iron " to 



The Forest Boy. 141 

the latest inventor of " a Yankee notion." The 
lecture was read in public twice, and then 
followed his invention into obscurity. 

While thus busy with inventions and study, 
Mr. Lincoln did not entirely neglect more se- 
rious concerns. His wife being a member of 
the Presbyterian Church, he sat under the min- 
istry of that denomination. He contributed 
cheerfully, and, according to his means, lib- 
erally, to the institutions and benevolent opera- 
tions of the Church. His law partner, with 
whom he commenced business in 1844, says 
that he was then a good biblical scholar. 

This partner, who observed Mr. Lincoln 
closely for many years, says of his character, as 
he appeared to him at this time : " He ap- 
proached more nearly the angelic nature than 
any person I had ever seen, woman not ex- 
cepted. He had an angel-looking eye and face ; 
yet he was not without passions. These in 
Lincoln were powerful, but they were under 
the control of a giant will. He had a towering 
ambition, but that ambition was directed for 



142 The Forest Boy. 

the attainment of power with which to elevate 
man." 

We shall not be surprised, after these glances 
at Mr. Lincoln at home and among his neigh- 
bors, and after having their estimate of him, to 
follow him into the halls of Congress. 



The Forest Boy. 143 



CHAPTER XVI. 

IN CONGRESS. 

Such had been Mr. Lincoln's popularity with 
his party that he felt warranted in expecting 
the nomination to Congress, which took place 
soon after his marriage. But the convention of 
his county to appoint delegates to the district 
nominating convention, sent him a delegate, 
under instructions to vote for the nomination 
of another man. This disappointment he bore 
with his accustomed good-nature. He wrote to 
a friend, saying : " In getting Baker the nomi- 
nation, I shall be fixed a good deal like a 
fellow that is made groomsman to the man who 
has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 
gal." When his rival was nominated, he sup- 
ported him with sincerity and zeal. 

When Henry Clay received the nomination 
of the Whig party as their candidate for the 



144 The Forest Boy. 

presidency, Mr. Lincoln entered at once into the 
efforts for his success in Illinois. He lectured 
in every part of the state, and did the party 
and their candidate great service by his able 
statements and defense of their principles. He 
even extended his itinerating for this purpose 
into Indiana. He had indulged, not only in 
the sincere conviction that Mr. Clay would 
make a better president than his rival, but in 
the confident hope of his election. "When, 
therefore, he learned that the people of the 
country had decided otherwise, he retired for a 
time from the political field with feelings of 
discouragement, if not of disgust. His estimate 
of Mr. Clay had been formed in boyhood, in 
part at least, by the reading of-his life, and in 
his imagination the great orator occupied a 
position of dazzling pre-eminence among com- 
mon statesmen. 

Mr. Lincoln's electioneering, though it had 
failed in its particular objects, secured results 
which he least sought : it greatly increased his 
own reputation as a sound thinker, a true 



The Forest Boy. 145 

statesman, and an able and fair debater. It 
also incidentally showed that he was a man of 
true courage. His low estimate of himself, and 
his uniform readiness to give way to the claims 
of others, had led those who could not understand 
real greatness to esteem him a timid man. A 
personal friend of Mr. Lincoln had made a 
speech of great eloquence and power, which 
excited the anger of the opposing party, and 
some of them declared he should not speak 
again. Hearing the threats, Mr. Lincoln and 
Col. Baker, afterward the distinguished sena- 
tor from Oregon, took their seats at his side 
the next time he addressed the people, and 
when he had finished, quietly walked with him 
to his hotel. " The boys " knew the men, and 
concluded that prudence was the safest policy. 

Mr. Lincoln subsequently defended Col. 
Baker in a manner amusing as well as heroic. 
Baker was speaking with great enthusiasm, 
and, in the midst of his zeal, uttered some 
expressions which called forth the wrath of his 
political enemies. " Take him out ! " shouted 



146 The Forest Boy. 

several voices. "Yes, pull him down," re- 
sponded others, and the mob were getting 
furious. Instantly Mr. Lincoln dropped, ap- 
parently through the ceiling, and landed at the 
side of his friend. He had been listening, 
unseen by the audience, at an old scuttle, 
directly over the speaker's stand. Hearing the 
mutterings of the storm below, lie appeared to 
stem its rage. " Gentlemen," said he, " let us 
not disgrace the age and country in which we 
live. Baker has a right to speak, and ought 
to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect 
him, and no man shall take him from this 
stand if I can prevent it." 

The calm attitude of Mr. Lincoln, while 
uttering these words gave assurance that he 
was in earnest, and Col. Baker finished without 
further interruption. 

Mr. Lincoln was not left long in retirement 
after the Clay campaign. In 1847 he received 
the "Whig nomination to represent " the Sanga- 
mon district" in Congress. He had desired 
this honor, but was too noble-minded to stoop 



The Forest Boy. 147 

to political trickery to obtain it. He was 
ambitious to secure a seat in the national 
legislature, but his desire did not spring from 
a selfish purpose, nor did he have in view a 
low end. He felt conscious of the noble 
powers God had given him, and wished to use 
them for the good of men. 

His election proved his popularity. He 
received a vote much larger than that which 
his party commanded at other times. 

He took his seat in Congress December 6, 
1847. He had seen enough of public life to 
be able to feel at home in this new position. 
He appeared before the House several times 
during the winter in speeches upon questions 
in debate. There were great men there, among 
whom were John Quincy Adams, Eobert Win- 
throp, Alexander Stevens, and N. P. Banks. 
But the new representative from the West 
always commanded attention when he spoke. 
He was master of his subject when he rose, 
and he uttered his thoughts in clear, forcible 
language, often made sparkling by a sharp 



148 The Forest Boy. 

retort, an apt illustration, or a witty compari- 
son. His bearing had the same unaffected 
simplicity that it did among the people of the 
Illinois log-cabins. On one occasion, wishing 
to take some law books from the capitol to his 
boarding-house for the purpose of examining a 
subject then in discussion, he put them in a silk 
handkerchief, and was proceeding to tie them 
up. A friend observing this, remarked, " Mr. 
Lincoln, I wouldn't trouble myself in that 
way ; send for a messenger-boy to carry them." 

"O no," replied Mr. Lincoln coolly; "I'll 
carry them myself, and then I shall know they 
are there in time." 

So having tied the corners of the handker- 
chief, he run his cane under the knot, and, 
swinging his books over his shoulder, marched 
as unconcernedly through the streets of Wash- 
ington to his hotel as if he had been on his 
western law circuit. 

While in Washington Mr. Lincoln was true 
to the antislavery principles he so nobly de- 
fended in the Illinois legislature, and in his 



The Forest Boy. 149 

speeches before the people. He voted with 
such men as John Quincy Adams, Mr. Wilmot, 
and Joshua R. Giddings, for free speech on the 
subject of slavery, and for such legislation on 
that vexed matter as he considered constitu- 
tional. The antislavery views and measures he 
then adopted appear very far from the standard 
of the present time, but he was in advance of 
the majority of his contemporaries in what he 
was willing to do and suffer in the cause of the 
slave. 

"When Mr. Lincoln's term of service in Con- 
gress was closed he made a brief tour in New 
England, delivering a few political speeches. 
He then returned home, and continued his 
public addresses in his own state. His long 
absence from his private business had of course 
injured it, and, no doubt, continued public 
service would have been agreeable to him. 
But there were other aspirants of his own party 
for his seat in Congress, and the nomination 
was given to one of them, whose defeat at the 
polls proved that Mr. Lincoln's own popularity, 



150 The Forest Boy. 

and not the strength of the party, had given 
him the previous election. Though he doubt- 
less believed he possessed this popularity, he 
was too high-minded to press his own claims 
when other friends of the cause were put 
forward. 

After General Taylor was nominated for the 
presidency, Mr. Lincoln spent much time in 
advocating his claims as a candidate ; and when 
the general had become president, he made 
some efforts through friends to obtain the re- 
sponsible position of Commissioner of the 
General Land Office. He did not, however, 
get the appointment, and he used afterward to 
make himself very merry over the effort and its 
failure. 



The Forest Boy. 151 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A GREAT CONTEST COMMENCED. 

After leaving Congress Mr. Lincoln attended 
closely to his law business for nearly five years. 
The following incident, which occurred near 
the close of this period, that is, in the early 
part of 1854, illustrates the pleasing fact that 
the bad influences at Washington had not 
shaken his temperance habits. 

The Illinois legislature were making a three 
days' excursion to Chicago, Mr. Lincoln being 
a special guest of the party. During the up- 
ward trip the party were sufficiently noisy, espe- 
cially at the stopping-places, where the political 
leaders were called out in brief speeches ; but 
the feasting and toasting by the knowing ones 
of Chicago, who desired votes from the legis- 
lators for a particular law, did not improve 

either their speech or manners. On the return 
10 



152 The Forest Boy. 

trip half of the best speakers liad given out 
" with fatigue, or something else," and others 
were filling their friends with shame when they 
attempted to speak. From the commencement 
of the excursion the people when calling for 
speakers never omitted the name of Lincoln, 
and when he appeared on the platform the 
wildest shouts rent the air, and the passengers 
in the cars would pass along the remark, 
" There, hear that ! Abe has been telling one 
of his good yarns. What a fellow he is ! He 
carries the people off their feet." As the party 
approached the termination of their excursion 
there seemed but one name shouted at every 
stopping-place, and that was " Lincoln ! Lin- 
coln ! " His tall form was more erect, and his 
voice rung out with a fuller, clearer tone than 
at the beginning. The spirit of his speeches 
may be learned from the following remarks 
dropped by one of the members to his wife: 
" Abe is talking temperance. How he does 
lash the drinking rascals ! There are not ten 
duly sober men in the whole crowd ; not one 



The Forest Boy. 153 

but himself but has drank some. No persua- 
sion, no influence which could be brought to 
bear, has induced him to touch anything but 
cold water ; and while all the rest are sick, 
tired out, and wholly used up, he is as fresh 
as when we started, the noblest Illinoisian of 
us all." 

In 1854 a law was made by Congress, by 
which slaves might be permitted to go injo the 
new territories if the voters so wished; but 
the slaveholders and their friends intended to 
take advantage of this law, and force sla- 
very upon Kansas, and into all the currents of 
western emigration. This act aroused Mr. 
Lincoln, and his life-long hatred of slavery 
burned with fresh intensity. He had been 
quiet, wishing perhaps to see what could be 
done by those who were determined to impose 
silence upon lawmakers respecting the peculiar 
institution. But he now saw that when the 
enemies of slavery submitted to an imposed 
silence, the sla 
in extending it. 



154 The Forest Boy. 

The author of this law, which so moved Mr. 
Lincoln, was Stephen A. Douglas, a senator 
from his own state. • Mr. Douglas had come to 
Illinois from Vermont when a young man, and 
first met Mr. Lincoln in the state legislature. 
In most respects they were extremely unlike. 
Mr.. Lincoln was the tallest man of the house, 
and remarkable for bodily strength. Mr. 
Douglas was the smallest as well as the young- 
est member, and of slight frame. Mr. Lincoln 
was modest, distrustful of his own abilities, and 
confident only when he had tried and suc- 
ceeded, knowing and feeling his want of early 
education and lack of attractive personal pres- 
ence. Mr. Douglas won his way by an easy 
address, and a confidence in himself which 
never failed him, though in the presence of the 
great, or in competition with men of large ex- 
perience and high position. Mr. Douglas was 
made a judge at a very early age, and when 
Mr. Lincoln entered Congress as a representa- 
tive, his competitor took his seat in the more 
honorable place of United States senator. 



The Forest Boy. 155 

Now, when the two were about to come before 
the country as opponents on the subject of 
slavery, Mr. Douglas had become the strongest 
party leader of the West, if not of the United 
States. His word commanded universal atten- 
tion, and, with his political friends, well-nigh 
universal assent. But his new move for slavery 
had strengthened the opposition of his enemies, 
and weakened the attachment of his friends. 
On the adjournment of the Congress in which 
it was made, he turned his face toward home, 
moving slowly, like a truant boy who fears to 
meet the frowns of a justly offended father. 
When he arrived at Chicago, and attempted 
boldly to defend his course, the excited people 
were loud in their denunciations, and refused 
to hear him. This was not the treatment that 
Mr. Lincoln desired to have him receive, and 
when Mr. Douglas came to Springfield a few 
weeks afterward, where a state fair was being 
held, and a great multitude of people were as- 
sembled from all parts of the state, no man 
listened more closely to his lengthy speech 



156 The Forest Boy. 

than he. He not only listened to it, but he 
understood it and the whole subject in all its 
bearings. The next day he stood up before 
that multitude, and replied to it in a speech 
three hours long. 

This speech is thus described by one present : 
" Mr. Lincoln quivered with feeling and emo- 
tion. The whole house was as still as death. 
He attacked the bill with unusual warmth and 
energy, and all felt that a man of strength was 
its enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he 
could by strong and manly efforts. He was 
most successful, and the house approved the 
glorious triumph of truth by loud and long-con- 
tinued huzzas. Women waved their white 
handkerchiefs in token of woman's silent but 
heartfelt consent. . . . Mr. Lincoln exhibited 
Douglas in all the attitudes in which he could 
be placed in a friendly debate. He exhibited 
the bill in all its aspects, to show its humbug- 
gery and falsehood, and when thus torn to rags, 
cut into slips, and held up to the gaze of the 
vast crowd, a kind .of scorn was visible upon the 



The Forest Boy. 157 

face of the crowd and upon the lips of the most 
eloquent speaker. ... At the conclusion of the 
speech every man felt that it was unanswerable ; 
that no human power could overthrow it or 
trample it under foot. The long and repeated 
applause evinced the feelings of the crowd, and 
gave token of universal assent to Lincoln's 
whole argument ; and every mind present did 
homage to the man who took captive the heart, 
and broke like a sun over the understanding." 

When Mr. Lincoln sat down, Mr. Douglas 
sprang to his feet to reply. His boldness was 
much abated, for he saw that the confidence of 
the people in the justness of his bill was gone. 
He talked for a short time, and then claimed 
the right of continuing his remarks in the even- 
ing. This right was conceded to him, but he 
failed to appear. " The Little Giant " arose to 
conquer as at other times, but his strength was 
gone. 

Mr. Douglas spoke a few days after at Peoria. 
Mr. Lincoln had followed him, and he replied 
to his speech in such a manner that no answer 



158 The Forest Boy. 

was attempted. Mr. Douglas had received 
enough of his earnest, honest opponent's " re- 
plies ;" they proved answers which allowed of 
no " answering again," and it is reported that 
he requested Mr. Lincoln not again to challenge 
him to debate. It is certain that for a while 
they both went their way to speak in different 
places. Mr. Lincoln's speeches in these few 
discussions were like unexpected shots thrown 
into an enemy's camp, creating confusion and 
some fear, but leaving a fierce determination to 
" fight it out." The old political parties became 
more and more feeble, some from the ranks of 
both combining against them for the sake of 
the bondman. 

In 1856 Mr. Lincoln finally broke away from 
the political organization to which he had been 
much attached, and for which he had spent 
much time and given his great influence, and 
became one of the organizers of a republican 
party in Illinois. This step gave increased 
force to his denunciations of slavery. He made 
a speech at the first convention of the party, 



The Forest Boy. 159 

which was full of argument and fiery eloquence. 
It was thus noticed at the time : " Never was an 
audience more completely electrified by human 
eloquence. Again and again, during the prog- 
ress of its delivery, they sprang to their feet and 
upon the benches, and testified by long-contin- 
ued shouts and the waving of hats how deeply 
the speaker had wrought upon their minds and 
hearts. It fused the mass of the hitherto incon- 
gruous elements into perfect homogeneity, and 
from that day they worked together in harmo- 
nious and fraternal union." Mr. Lincoln became 
at once the western leader of the new party, and 
in making up their ticket for the presidential 
election of 1856, he was extensively named for 
the second place on it, which was finally given 
to Judge Dayton. This showed the esteem in 
which he was then held where he had become 
well known, and pointed significantly toward 
the White House, though there was to be, be- 
fore entering it, an achievement of a triumph 
on an important field of conflict. 



160 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A TRIUMPH ACHIEVED. 

In 1858 a new and more exciting turn was given 
to the antislavery controversy. Judge Doug- 
las's law in favor of what he called " popular 
sovereignty," professing to let the people of the 
new states vote slavery " up or down," had re- 
sulted in forcing, by fraud, a slaveholder's con- 
stitution upon Kansas. Douglas opposed the 
fraud, but still defended the law which occa- 
sioned it. Lincoln insisted in his speeches that 
the law itself was a cheat. This led to a famous 
controversy between these two great men, by 
which the fame of both was extended, and by 
which slavery and freedom were held up in a 
clearer light to the gaze of the people. 

It happened that Douglas's term of service in 
the United States Senate expired about this 
time. The convention of his party met in 



The Forest Boy. 161 

April and nominated him as their candidate for 
another term. The Eepublican party met in 
June, and nominated Mr. Lincoln for the same 
office. The two candidates commenced at once 
to address the people concerning the questions 
upon which they differed, the principal one be- 
ing slavery. The good temper in which this 
controversy was carried on was very remarka- 
ble. The disputants began with a kind word 
for each other. Mr. Lincoln thus spoke of 
Judge Douglas : " Twenty-two years ago Judge 
Douglas and I first became acquainted. We 
were both young then, he a trifle younger than 
I. Even then we were both ambitious, I per- 
haps quite as much so as he. With me the 
race of ambition has been a failure, a flat fail- 
ure ; with him it has been one of splendid suc- 
cess. ' His name fills the nation, and is not un- 
known even in foreign lands. I affect no con- 
tempt for the high eminence he has reached. 
So reached that the oppressed of my species 
might have shared with me in the elevation, I 
would rather stand on that eminence than wear 



102 The Forest Boy. 

the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's 
brow." Mr. Lincoln, in a speech early in the 
campaign, thus playfully alludes to the advant- 
ages his opponent had over him in the minds of 
many influential persons, who were expecting 
his nomination for the presidential office : " They 
have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post- 
offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet 
appointments, chargeships, and foreign missions 
bursting and sprouting out in wonderful lux- 
uriance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy 
hands. And as they have been gazing upon 
this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in 
the little distraction that has taken place in the 
party, bring themselves to give up the charming 
hope ; but with greedier anxiety they rush about 
him, sustain him, give him inarches, triumphal 
entries, and receptions, beyond what even in the 
days of his highest prosperity they could have 
brought about in his favor. On the contrary, 
nobody has ever expected me to be president. 
In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen 
that any cabbages were sprouting out." 



The Forest Boy. L63 

Mr. Douglas refers in the following manner 
to Mr. Lincoln : " I take great pleasure in say- 
ing that I have known personally and intimately 
the worthy gentleman who has been nominated 
for my place, and I will say that I regard him 
as a kind, amiable, and intelligent man, a good 
citizen, and an honorable opponent ; and what- 
ever issues I may have with him will be of 
principles and not of personalities." 

Mr. Lincoln made his first speech of this fa- 
mous senatorial campaign at Springfield, Illi- 
nois, to the convention of a thousand delegates 
which nominated him, and to the crowd which 
gathered with them. It was carefully prepared, 
every sentence being guarded and emphatic. 
Before entering the hall where it was to be 
delivered, he stepped into the office of his law- 
partner, Mr. Herndon, and locking the door, 
that their interview might be strictly private, 
took the manuscript from his pocket and read 
the opening statement, which was that " this 
government cannot endure permanently half 
slave and half free." Mr. Herndon remarked 



164 The Forest Boy. 

that the sentiment was true, but suggested that 
it might not be good policy to utter it at that 
time. Mr. Lincoln replied with great firmness : 
" No matter about the policy. It is true, and 
the nation is entitled to it. The proposition 
has been true for six thousand years, and I will 
deliver it as it is written." 

This speech made a deep impression, not 
only from the zeal and evident sincerity of the 
speaker, but from the sound argument pre- 
sented. 

Soon after, Mr. Douglas went to Chicago, 
where the first excitement concerning his late 
course in the Senate had prevented his speak- 
ing. His friends now rallied, and a very flat- 
tering reception was given to him. Cheers 
greeted his appearance upon the platform, and 
constant cheering stimulated his desperate 
determination to talk down the rising popular 
feeling which threatened to sweep away both 
his office and influence. The effect of his 
speech showed that if his power over the 
masses was waning, it was still great. No man 



The Forest Boy. 165 

could have done better with so bad a cause. 
It was evident that he who should dare follow 
him would be a bold man. 

Mr. Lincoln had listened to Mr. Douglas, 
and fully understood every argument and every 
evasion, and the next evening he took the 
stand, greeted by deafening applause. Al- 
though his opponent had been provoking in 
his treatment of his Springfield speech, he was 
in excellent humor while showing this unfair- 
ness. He used the occasion to reaffirm his 
sentiments concerning slavery. He said : " I 
have always hated slavery, I trust, as much as 
any Abolitionist. I have been an Old Line 
Whig. I have always hated it, but I have 
been quiet about it until this new era of the 
introduction of the Nebraska bill began. I have 
always believed that everybody was against it, 
and that it was in course of ultimate extinction." 

So clear were his statements, and so plainly 
honest every word, that the mass of the people 
who heard him were evidently brought into full 
sympathy with his political doctrines. 



166 The Forest Boy. 

Mr. Douglas made no reply, but went to 
other parts of the state, followed by his oppo- 
nent, with his annoying popularity and his 
more annoying arguments. Mr. Lincoln even 
proposed to Mr. Douglas that they should 
travel through the state together, agreeing 
upon some plan of discussion at every point. 
This Mr. Douglas declined, but after some 
delay, during which they spoke in different 
places, he agreed that they should hold public 
discussions in seven prominent towns. The 
arrangements in reference to this proposal were 
made and carried out. Mr. Douglas, being 
rich, is said to have traveled with great parade, 
spending many thousands of dollars during the 
discussion. Mr. Lincoln maintained his usual 
simplicity, and very innocently remarked at 
the close, that it had been a very expensive 
work, and he really thought it had cost him 
iive hundred dollars. But sometimes the .two 
opponents traveled together in friendly chat in 
the same carriage or public conveyance. 

The magazines and journals of the day con- 



The Forest Boy. 167 

tamed reports of the debate, and graphic pen- 
portraits of the disputants, of which the follow- 
ing is a good example : " During this political 
contest with Mr. Douglas, Mr. Lincoln not only 
proved himself an able speaker and a good 
tactician, but demonstrated that it is possible 
to carry on the fiercest political warfare with- 
out once descending to rude personality and 
coarse denunciation. We have it on the author- 
ity of a person who followed Abraham Lincoln 
throughout the whole of that campaign, that, 
in spite of all the temptations to an opposite 
course to which he was continually exposed, no 
personalities against his opponent, no vitu- 
perations or coarseness, ever defiled his lips. 
His kind and genial nature lifted him above a 
resort to any such weapon of political warfare, 
and it was the commonly expressed regret of 
fiercer natures that he treated his opponent so 
courteously and urbanely. Vulgar personali- 
ties and vituperation are the last things that 
can be truthfully charged against Abraham 

Lincoln. His heart is too genial, his good 
11 



168 The Fokest Boy. 

sense too strong, and his innate self-respect too 
predominant to permit liim to indulge in tliem. 
His nobility of nature, and we use the term 
advisedly, has been as steadfast throughout his 
whole career as his temperate habits, his self- 
reliance, and his intellectual power." 

Another writer thus sketches both the de- 
baters as they appeared in their discussion at 
Galesburgh : " The men are entirely dissimilar. 
Mr. Douglas is a thick-set, finely-built, coura- 
geous man, and has an air of self-confidence 
that does not a little to inspire his supporters 
with hope. Mr. Lincoln is a tall, lank man, 
awkward, apparently diffident, and, when not 
speaking, has not firmness in his countenance 
nor fire in his eye. He has a rich silvery 
voice; he enunciates with great distinctness, 
and has a fine command of language. 

" Mr. Lincoln commenced by a review of the 
points Mr. Douglass had made. In this he 
showed great tact, and his retorts, though 
gentlemanly, were sharp, and reached to the 
core the subject in dispute. While he gave but 



The Forest Boy. 169 

little time to the work of review, we did not 
feel that anything was omitted which deserved 
attention. 

"He then proceeded to defend the Repub- 
lican party. Here he charged Mr. Douglas 
with doing nothing for freedom ; with disre- 
garding the rights and interests of the colored 
man ; and for about forty minutes he spoke 
with a power that we have seldom heard 
equaled. There was a grandeur in his 
thoughts, a comprehensiveness in his argu- 
ments, and a binding force in his conclusions, 
which were perfectly irresistible. The vast 
throng was silent as death ; every eye was fixed 
upon the speaker, and all gave him serious 
attention. He was the tall man eloquent ; his 
countenance glowed with animation, and his 
eye glistened with an intelligence that made it 
lustrous. He was no longer awkward and 
ungainly, but graceful, bold, and commanding. 

" Mr. Douglas had been quietly smoking up 
to this time ; but here he forgot his cigar, and 
listened with anxious attention. When he rose 



170 The Forest Boy. 

to reply, he appeared excited, disturbed, and 
his second effort seemed to us vastly inferior to 
his first. Mr. Lincoln had given a great talk, 
and he had neither time nor ability to answer 
him." 

The eyes of the whole country were turned 
toward Illinois, and the debaters were followed 
from point to point through the reports of the 
public journals. When the debate was closed 
the Republican party published the speeches 
of both, without alteration or comment, and 
scattered them over the country, greatly swell- 
ing the wave of influence which soon changed 
the administration of the general government. 

Mr. Lincoln's reputation as a great and good 
man was immensely advanced ; but he lost, and 
Mr. Douglas won, the position of United States 
senator, by the vote of their state legislature. 
If the people of the state had voted directly on 
the question, instead of by their representatives, 
they would have given Mr. Lincoln a majority 
of four thousand. 

AVI i en Mr. Lincoln was asked how he felt 



The Forest Boy. 171 

when he learned that he had been defeated, he 
replied: "Like the boy who struck his toe 
against a stone, too much hurt to laugh, and 
too big to cry." 

But he had convinced the people of his own 
state, and had done much to convince the mass 
of the people in all the free states, that his 
principles, the principles of universal freedom, 
were right. This was achieving a triumph 
which bore him beyond the senatorship to a 
position from which the White House was 
clearly in view. 



172 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WHITE HOUSE IN PEOSPECT. 

The interest of the people of the United States 
in the presidential election which was to take 
place in November, 1860, commenced its sig- 
nificant manifestation many months previous. 
The cries of the oppressed negroes of the South 
had entered the ears of God, and he had given 
to many thousands of the voters hearts to feel 
their wrongs. Men in every part of the free 
states were saying, Slavery shall extend no 
further ; our new territories which are now free 
shall never be polluted by the feet of slave- 
holders, with their property in men and 
women ; we cannot touch it in the states where 
it now exists, but there it shall stay until its 
own wicked and hated character shall kill it. 

We have seen that Mr. Lincoln had been in 
the "West an honest and earnest standard-bearer 



The Forest Boy. 173 

for those who held these sentiments, so that the 
very first movements in that section of the 
country toward selecting a candidate for the 
presidential office gave evidence that the 
thoughts and hearts of the people were turned 
to him. But men have sometimes very boyish 
and very foolish ways of showing their interest 
in serious and important matters. They called 
General Jackson " Old Hickory," and made a 
great cry about his being like the " gnarled oak " 
when politicians wished to twist him about ; 
they made a great noise concerning log-cabins 
and hard cider when General Harrison was a 
presidential candidate; and now, when they 
wished to bring Mr. Lincoln into notice for the 
same high office, many men seemed to think 
that there must be some such rallying cry in 
order to elect him. Doubtless all these good 
and great men were mortified to have their 
names connected with such foolish matters, 
which had nothing to do with their fitness for 
the honorable and difficult duties of president 
of a great nation. 



174: The Forest Boy. 

The key-note of this kind of party watch- 
word was given by Mr. Lincoln's friends in his 
own state, and early in the campaign. In May, 
1859, the Illinois state republican convention 
met in Decatur, and Mr. Lincoln attended as a 
spectator. When he entered the hall a burst of 
applause greeted him, which seemed to shake 
the foundation of the building. The sight of 
his homely but honest face, so expressive of 
intelligence and power, electrified the audience. 
He had hardly taken his seat when the gov- 
ernor of the state arose, and said that an old 
democrat wished to make a presentation to the 
convention. Permission being given, two old 
fence-rails were borne into the hall, covered 
with showy decorations. They bore the in- 
scription, " Abraham Lincoln, the rail candi- 
date for the presidency in 1860. Two rails 
from a lot of three thousand, made in 1830 by 
Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose father 
was the first pioneer of Macon County." 

At sight of these emblems of their favorite's 
popular character and humble origin, the ex- 



The Forest Boy. 175 

cited crowd sprang to their feet, and showed 
their enthusiasm by vociferous and long con- 
tinued cheering. "When at last the tumult had 
in a measure subsided, Mr. Lincoln was called 
upon to explain the statement respecting the 
rails. This he did by modestly rehearsing the 
facts, which we have given in their place in his 
history, relating to his breaking up some land 
for his father, and splitting rails to inclose it. 
The shouts of " The rail-splitter of Illinois the 
people's choice for the presidency," were taken 
up by the hardy tillers of the soil in every part 
of the great West, and were echoed from the 
far off Atlantic and Pacific shores. The noisy 
demonstration of the people did not affect Mr. 
Lincoln, except as they gave evidence of an 
increasing love for the cause of the oppressed. 
He was busy with the great principles of uni- 
versal freedom, convincing the masses by his 
strong arguments, and winning their hearts by 
his kind spirit. 

He visited Kansas, and the people greeted his 
coming among them with an enthusiastic wel- 



1TG The Forest Boy. 

come both universal and sincere. No con- 
queror, returning with the trophies of his vic- 
tory, could have so taken captive all hearts. 
They remembered his generous words and 
deeds in their behalf during their dark days of 
brave but unequal contest with the slave 
power. 

After visiting Kansas, Mr. Lincoln followed 
Judge Douglas into Ohio, repeating and en- 
larging upon the arguments of the great sena- 
torial discussion. He spoke at Cincinnati to 
immense crowds, uttering many kind and wise 
words for the slaveholders across the river, 
knowing that the papers along the border 
would publish his speech. 

In the early part of 1860 Mr. Lincoln turned 
his face toward the Atlantic states. He had 
not yet become known much out of the West, 
except by the report of his debates with Judge 
Douglas. He had received an invitation to 
speak in the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's 
church in Brooklyn. He accepted the invita- 
tion, and on the twenty-fifth of February ar- 



The Forest Boy. 177 

rived in New York. After reaching the Astor 
House on Saturday, he learned, to his surprise, 
that arrangements had been made by his politi- 
cal friends for him to speak in the Cooper Insti- 
tute of the great metropolis. "When visited by 
the great men of his party, he was found dressed 
in a new suit of black, badly wrinkled by being 
closely packed in his valise. He felt embar- 
rassed by his unbecoming dress, as well as by 
his new and, to him, strange position, and 
spoke of both to his visitors with a childlike 
simplicity. 

Having on Saturday reviewed and modified 
his speech with reference to the change of place 
of its delivery, he attended, with evident satis- 
faction, Mr. Beecher's church «on Sunday. On 
Monday he was taken by his friends through 
some of the principal streets and largest busi- 
ness establishments of the city. He met, while 
looking at its wonderful things, an old friend 
from Illinois, who remarked, in the course of 
their conversation, that he had made and lost 
since coining to New York a hundred thousand 



178 The Forest Boy. 

dollars, and, looking earnestly at Mr. Lincoln, 
added, " And how is it with you ? " " O very 
well," he replied. "I have the cottage in 
Springfield, and about eight thousand dollars 
in money. If they make me vice-president with 
Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be 
able to increase it to twenty thousand, and that 
is as much as any man ought to want." 

He met, at a photograph establishment, 
George Bancroft, the famous and learned his- 
torian. He felt embarrassed when introduced 
to one of such eminent refinement, but still he 
maintained his natural frankness and freedom 
of conversation. He told Mr. Bancroft that he 
was going to Cambridge, in Massachusetts, 
where he had a* son who, if reports were true, 
already knew more than his father. 

Mr. Lincoln felt a burden upon his spirits as 
he returned to his hotel. He was to speak that 
night to one of the largest and most intelligent 
audiences that ever assembled in the country. 
His excursion during the day had painfully 
impressed him with a sense of his own insignifi- 



The Forest Boy. 179 

cance. He was ambitious, but distrustful of bis 
abilities. He knew be bad succeeded in speak- 
ing to bis own people in tbe "West, to wbom be 
thought Ins peculiar manner might be adapted. 
But would tbe people who were accustomed to 
hear tbe most scholarly and able men of the 
country listen to him with favor ? 

Such were some of tbe thoughts with which 
Mr. Lincoln entered the hall of the institute. 
He found it crowded with gentlemen and ladies, 
who had an intense curiosity to hear him. The 
platform was occupied by tbe distinguished men 
of the Kepublican party of Brooklyn and New 
York. 

Mr. Lincoln's fears concerning tbe reception 
of bis speech proved entirely groundless. ~No 
one effort of bis life of this kind did so much to 
increase his fame and influence. He said to 
the reporters who had called upon him for notes 
of his speech before its delivery, that he did not 
think any of the editors would consider it worth 
an extended notice. But it was published and 
read all over tbe free states. Men wondered at 



180 The Foeest Boy. 

its unanswerable logic, its pure English, and 
happy illustrations. The forest boy of the West 
became the lion of the East. 

After the lecture Mr. Lincoln tarried until a 
late hour at a supper given by his special 
friends, delighting them as much by his stories 
and good-humor in the social circle as he had 
surprised them by his intellectual power in 
public. 

He spent a few days in further sight-seeing 
at New York. A teacher in the Five Points 
House of Industry relates the following incident 
which occurred during one of his calls: 

" Our Sunday-school in the Five Points was 
assembled one Sabbath morning a few months 
since, when I noticed a tall and remarkable 
looking man enter the room and take a seat 
among us. He listened with fixed attention to 
our exercises, and his countenance manifested 
such genuine interest, that I approached him 
and suggested that he might be willing to say 
something to the children. He accepted the 
invitation with evident pleasure, and, coming 



The Forest Boy. 181 

forward, began a simple address which at once 
fascinated every little hearer, and hushed the 
room into silence. His language was strikingly 
beautiful, and his tones musical with intensest 
feeling. The little faces around would droop 
into sad conviction as he uttered sentences of 
warning, and would brighten into sunshine as 
he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or 
twice he attempted to close his remarks, but 
the imperative shout of ' Go on ! O do go on ! ' 
would compel him to resume. As he was 
quietly leaving the room I begged to know his 
name. He courteously replied, ' It is Abraham 
Lincoln, of Illinois.' " 

Leaving New York, Mr. Lincoln made an 
excursion through some of the principal cities 
of Connecticut, and visited his son at Harvard 
College, Mass. He made speeches in several 
cities with great success. In New Haven a 
professor of rhetoric in Yale College went to 
hear his address, and gave a lecture the next 
day to his class on its excellences. The pro- 
lessor was so much pleased and impressed by 



182 The Forest Boy. 

the speaker that he followed him to Meriden to 
learn more concerning his wonderful originality 
and power. 

A distinguished clergyman of Norwich, after 
a familiar conversation with Mr. Lincoln con- 
cerning his remarkable success as a speaker, 
said, as they were about to part, " Mr. Lin- 
coln, may I say one thing to you before we 
separate ? " 

" Certainly ; anything you please," was the 
reply. 

" You have just spoken," said the minister, 
" of the tendency of political life in Washington 
to lead our representatives to act from expedi- 
ency instead of principle. You have become 
one of our leaders in the great struggle with 
slavery which is the struggle of the nation and 
the age. What I would like to say is this, an*d 
I say it with a full heart : Be true to your prin- 
ciples and we will be true to you, and God will 
be true to us all." Mr. Lincoln was greatly 
moved by the earnestness of the appeal, and, 
taking his friend's extended hand in both of his 



The j?'obest Boy. 183 

own, exclaimed, " I say amen to that ! Amen 
to that ! " 

During these itineratings of Mr. Lincoln, 
the wave of popular excitement in reference 
to the questions which were to enter into the 
approaching presidential election was plainly 
increasing in extent and force ; and as the 
excitement increased the name of Abraham 
Lincoln became more prominent. With, there- 
fore, the White House clearly in prospect, ho 
returned to his Illinois home to await the result 
of the approaching nominating convention, and 
the decisive utterances of the voice of the people 

which were to follow. 

12 



184 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. 

In April, 1860, the people began to speak 
in reference to the presidential candidates. 
Several conventions were held, and Stephen A. 
Douglas, Mr. Lincoln's old opponent, John C. 
Breckenridge, a slaveholder of Kentucky, and 
John Bell, of Tennessee, were nominated. But 
the convention in which the people of the free 
states were most interested, and toward which 
the eyes of the whole country were turned, met 
at Chicago on the sixteenth of June. It assem- 
bled in a building of immense size put up for 
the purpose, and called " The Wigwam." The 
people who had nocked to Chicago to witness or 
to influence the doings of the convention could 
hardly be numbered ; fifteen hundred slept in a 
single hotel. All comfortable lodging places 
of the vast city were occupied, and many 



The Forest Boy. 1S5 

were compelled to be content with very poor 
ones. 

After some debate the convention adopted 
its "platform," which might be called the in- 
scription to be put upon the republican ban- 
ners and carried into every battle during the 
presidential campaign. It was antislavery and 
" free soil." When it was announced, the ex- 
citement of the people became intense. An 
eyewitness thus describes it : " All the thou- 
sands of men in that enormous wigwam com- 
menced swinging their hats, and cheering with 
intense enthusiasm ; and the other thousands of 
ladies waved their handkerchiefs and clapped 
their hands. The roar that went up from the 
mass of ten thousand human beings is inde- 
scribable. Such a spectacle as was presented 
for some minutes has never been witnessed 
at a convention. A herd of buffaloes or lions 
could not have made a more tremendous 
roaring." 

Before the balloting for a candidate was com- 
menced, a telegram was sent to Mr. Lincoln. It 



186 The Forest Boy. 

told him that the votes of certain two delega- 
tions would decide the nomination in his favor, 
and that he could have them if he would prom- 
ise the chairman of each a place in his cabinet. 
Promptly the wires flashed the following reply : 

"I authorize no bargains, and will be bound 
by none. " A. Lincoln." 

Now came the voting. On the third ballot- 
ing Abraham Lincoln received a majority. The 
painful silence which attended the voting 
was succeeded by deafening shouts when the 
result was announced. Inside the wigwam the 
multitude cheered until strength failed them. 
A man who had been standing upon the roof 
during the voting shouted the name of Abraham 
Lincoln. Cannon had been mounted on the top 
of one of the hotels, and in other conspicuous 
positions, and all were ready for the match. 
When, therefore, the sentinel called from the 
top of the wigwam, the answering guns thun- 
dered their approval in every direction. The 



The Fokest Boy. 187 

multitude without responded to the multitude 
within, and the mingled shouts were " as the 
voice of many waters." The great city of 
Chicago was wild with joy. The dignity of 
great men, and the sobriety of, the aged, were 
borne away in the common enthusiasm. As 
the telegraphic wires flashed over the whole 
country the name of Abraham Lincoln, the 
people knew what it meant. It meant a polit- 
ical struggle between slavery and freedom — a 
struggle for the rule of the many against the 
rule of the few, such as the world had never 
seen. All the loyal, liberty-loving people re- 
joiced, and responded to the shouts of the great 
city of the "West, from every city, town, and vil- 
lage of the free states. 

During the excitement of the voting at 
Chicago, Mr. Lincoln was quietly sitting with 
his friends in the office of " The Journal," at 
Springfield, Illinois. It cannot be supposed 
that his interest was otherwise than intense as 
the telegram conveyed to him the result of each 
balloting. When, at last, the telegram came 



1S8 The Forest Boy. 

which announced his nomination, he took it 
from the hands of the messenger of the telegraph 
office, and read it, first in silence, and then to 
the friends about him. He was not exultant. 
It is reported t^at clouds of sadness were seen 
alternating with the expressions of joy upon his 
countenance. He knew well what burdens this 
news foreshadowed. Having waited a few 
moments to receive the congratulations of his 
friends, he quietly pocketed the telegram, say- 
ing, as he walked from the office, that there was 
" a little woman " at home who had an interest 
in the matter. 

That evening Mr. Lincoln was engaged until 
a late hour receiving the congratulations of 
the citizens of Springfield, who sincerely and 
ardently loved him. On the next day came a 
committee from the Chicago Convention, bear- 
ing the official announcement of his nomination. 
Mr. Lincoln's Springfield friends, thinking to 
do him a favor, had sent to his house sundry 
vessels of strong drink. They thought lie would 
need it to give a fitting reception to the eminent 



The Forest Boy. 189 

men who were about to call upon him. But 
this was not in accordance with his principles or 
practices ; being embarrassed by it, he privately 
took counsel about the matter with a friend on 
the committee before they came in formally. 
This friend said, " Mr. Lincoln, I advise you to 
return the liquor, and act in acordance with 
your principles." This he did, as will be seen 
in the following account given by an eyewitnesSi 
The speech of the chairman of the committee 
had been made on presenting the nomination, 
and Mr. Lincoln had replied, accepting it with 
expressions of distrust in himself, and of confi- 
dence in God's blessing. 

" Mr. Lincoln then remarked to the company 
that, as an appropriate conclusion to an inter- 
view so important and interesting as that which 
had just transpired, he supposed good manners 
would recpiire that he should treat the commit- 
tee with something to drink; and, opening a 
door that led into a room in the rear, he called 
out, l Mary ! Mary ! ' A girl responded to the 
call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words in 



190 The Forest Boy. 

an undertone ; and, closing the door, returned 
again to converse with his guests. In a few 
moments the maiden entered bearing a large 
waiter containing several tumblers and a pitch- 
er in the midst, and placed it upon the center- 
table. Mr. Lincoln arose, and gravely address- 
ing the company, said : ' Gentlemen, we must 
pledge our mutual healths in the most healthy 
beverage God has given to man ; it is the only 
beverage I have ever used or allowed in my 
family, and I cannot conscientiously depart 
from it on the present occasion ; it is pure 
Adam's ale from the spring.' Taking a tum- 
bler, he touched it to his lips and pledged them 
his highest respects in a cup of cold water. Of 
course all his guests were constrained to admit 
his consistency and join in his example." 

The committee, though not merry with wine, 
were very cheerful. Judge Kelley, of Pennsyl- 
vania, a very tall man, as he approached to 
shake hands with Mr. Lincoln, paused, and in a 
pleasant manner looked at him from head to 
foot, as if about to estimate his height. Mr. 



The Forest Boy. 191 

Lincoln observed this, and, as he took the 
judge's hand, said, 

" Judge, how high are you ? " 

" Six feet three," replied the judge. " What 
is your height, Mr. Lincoln ? " 

" Six feet four," answered Mr. Lincoln. 

" Then, sir," said the judge, " Pennsylvania 
bows to Illinois. My dear man," he added, 
" for many years my heart has been aching for 
a president I could look up to, and I've found 
him at last in the land where we thought there 
were none but little giants." 

Mr. Lincoln, being now regarded as the prop- 
erty of the nation, was allowed to have no rest 
at his own home. The sudden increase of his 
friends was truly wonderful. With unfaltering 
patience he gave attention to each visitor, for a 
while answering in person his door-bell, and ac- 
companying his guests to the door when they 
retired. His friends, observing the severe labor 
of these calls, provided him with a colored serv- 
ant by the name of " Thomas ;" but Mr. Lin- 
coln could not always wait for Thomas's move- 



192 The Forest Boy. 

ments in attending the door, nor endure his 
formal courtesy in bowing them out. His new 
•position could not easily teach him, however 
necessary it might be, a new mode of hospital- 
ity. With him everything must be done with 
entire sincerity and frankness or not at all. 

The following incident, given by a writer in 
the " Portland Press," shows the freedom with 
which his home was invaded by curious callers, 
and the kindness with which they were re- 
ceived. The gentleman here spoken of had 
been at the Chicago convention, and when the 
nomination was made immediately started to 
see the candidate at his home. The account 
says : " Arriving at Springfield, he put up at a 
public house, and loitering upon the front door- 
steps had the curiosity to inquire of the land- 
lord where Mr. Lincoln lived. "While giving 
the necessary directions the landlord suddenly 
remarked, ' There is Mr. Lincoln now, coming 
down the sidewalk ; that tall, crooked man, 
loosely walking this way ; if you wish to see 
him you will have an opportunity by putting 



The Forest Boy. 193 

yourself in his track.' In a few moments the 
object of his curiosity reached the point which 
our friend occupied, who, advancing, ventured 
to accost him thus : ' Is this Mr. Lincoln ? ' 
'That, sir, is my name.' 'My name is R., 
from Plymouth County, Massachusetts, and 
learning that you have to-day been made the 
public property of the United States, I have 
ventured to introduce myself, with a view to a 
brief acquaintance, hoping you will pardon such 
a patriotic curiosity in a stranger.' Mr. Lin- 
coln received his salutations with cordiality, told 
him no apology was necessary for his introduc- 
tion, and asked him to accompany him to his 
residence. 

" Arriving at Mr. Lincoln's residence, he was 
introduced to Mrs. Lincoln and the two boys. 
After some conversation concerning the Lincoln 
family of the Plymouth colony and the history 
of the Pilgrim Fathers, with which Mr. Lincoln 
seemed familiar, Mr. R. desired the privilege 
of writing a letter to be dispatched by the next 
mail. Mr. Lincoln very promptly^ and kindly 



194 The Forest Boy. 

provided him with the necessary means. As he 
began to write Mr. Lincoln approached, and 
tapping him on the shoulder, expressed the hope 
that he was not a spy who had come thus early 
to report his faults to the public. 'By no 
means, sir,' protested Mr. R., 'I am writing 
home to my wife, who, I dare say, will hardly 
credit the fact that I am writing in your house.' 
' O, sir,' exclaimed Mr. Lincoln, ' if your wife 
doubts your word I will cheerfully indorse it, 
if you will give me permission,' and taking 
the pen from Mr. R. he wrote the following 
words, in a clear hand, upon the blank page of 
the letter : 

" ' I am happy to say that your husband is at 
the present time a guest in my house, and in 
due time I trust you will greet his safe return 
to the bosom of his family. A. Lincoln.' " 

These calls became so frequent that they left 
to Mr. Lincoln and his family but few moments 
of quiet or privacy. His friends again came to 
his relief, and procured the executive chamber, 



The Forest Boy. 195 

a large and beautiful room in the state-house, 
where he received, until his departure for Wash- 
ington, all callers. Here he felt at liberty to 
have stated reception hours, and to impose more 
restraint upon his visitors ; yet his simplicity 
and frankness were unchanged, as the following 
incidents will show. 

Sitting in his reception room on one occasion, 
busily engaged with a friend, he noticed two 
young men timidly lingering about the door. 
They were dressed in rustic clothes, and gave 
evidence that they were unused to the presence 
of great men. Mr. Lincoln discerned at once 
that they had a desire to speak to him, but were 
afraid to enter. Going to the door he said 
kindly, " How do you do, my good fellows ? 
What can I do for you ? Will you walk in and 
sit down ? " 

Thus made to feel at their ease in his presence, 
the shorter one of the two made known their 
errand. He said he had told his companion, in 
a talk about the matter, that he thought him 
just as tall as Mr. Lincoln, and they had come 



196 The Forest Boy. 

to find out if lie was right. Mr. Lincoln stepped 
back into the room and returned with his cane. 
" Here, young man," he said, speaking to the 
taller one, "stand against the wall under this 
cane." He then adjusted it to his height/ 
"ISTow," he continued, "step out and let me 
stand under it." He then placed himself under 
the cane, as the young man held it, moving his 
head back and forth to ascertain if it just 
reached it. " There," said he, smiling, as he 
stepped out, " you and I are just of a height ; 
your friend has made a remarkable guess." 

He shook hands with them cordially as they 
parted, not giving them the slightest occasion to 
think that he felt his dignity offended by the 
nature of their call. Soon after the young men 
had retired a plainly-dressed and honest-look- 
ing countrywoman entered, and introduced her- 
self as one with whom he had been acquainted 
on his " circuit." He did not at once recognize 
her, but she readily brought their acquaintance 
to his recollection by several incidents such as 
were sure to attend upon any period of Mr. 



The Forest Boy. 197 

Lincoln's history. This point gained, she 
wished to remind him of a dinner of bread and 
milk which he once ate at her house. Mr. Lin- 
coln could not remember that ; he remembered 
taking several very excellent dinners with her, 
but he could not remember one upon bread and 
milk. " Why," said the good woman, with 
kindling emotions, " you called once quite late. 
"We had been to dinner, and I felt bad because 
I had nothing but bread and milk to give you. 
You ate that, and when you had done you ex- 
claimed, 'I have had a good dinner; good 
enough for the President of the United States /' " 
It was the impression that these last words 
made upon her mind, now revived and deep- 
ened by his prospect of being President, which 
caused her to walk that morning eight miles to 
repeat them to Mr. Lincoln, feeling perhaps 
that they were a prophetic assurance of his 
success. 

Some of the calls he received conveyed much 
less honest expressions of friendship ; while still 
others were of a more serious character, being 



198 The Forest Boy. 

from men who bore a sincere burden of mind 
for the future good of the republic, and who 
came with words of counsel and encouragement. 
It can be stated as a simple fact, that all these 
callers left Mr. Lincoln's presence with the im- 
pression that he was a remarkable man. 



The Forest Boy. 199 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE "WHITE HOUSE ENTERED. 

On the sixth of November, 1860, Abraham 
Lincoln was elected President of the United 
States. While the telegraph was yet flashing 
the exciting particulars of the voting, he retired 
to the privacy of his own house. His nervous 
system had been greatly taxed, and he threw 
himself upon a lounge in his chamber. Great 
burdens were in prospect for him, and he 
rejoiced with trembling. Shades of sadness, 
so frequent at a later period, passed across 
his countenance. Strange imaginings, which 
he could not throw off, disturbed him, and 
gave him, as he remarked, " a little pang, 
as though something uncomfortable had hap- 
pened." 

Mrs. Lincoln shared his gloomy forebodings, 

and expressed the fear " that though he might be 
13 



200 The Fokest Boy. 

elected to a second term of office, he would not 
see life through the last term." 

Though Mr. Lincoln had these fears in ref- 
erence to himself, he had none concerning the 
extension and final triumph of the principles 
for which he had just been appointed President. 
The great mass of the pious people of the 
North had prayed for his election, and were 
now rendering thanks to God. Joy prevailed 
in the free states, anger and fierce resolutions 
of resistance among the slaveholders. 

After his election, Mr. Lincoln's receptions 
at the executive chamber of the state-house 
became more burdensome. The log-cabin boy 
of the West had become the lion of the nation. 
Multitudes came to see him daily, to whom he 
spoke freely and sincerely. To a few he opened 
the deepest feelings of his heart. 

There was an earnest Christian friend having 
an office adjoining the reception room, with 
whom, after the pressure of the public recep- 
tions, he held deeply interesting and confiden- 
tial conversations. On one occasion he ex- 



The Forest Boy. 201 

pressed to him the anxiety he felt to have the 
support of Christians, especially the aid of 
all ministers of the Gospel. It gave him pain 
to learn that any of these were opposed to the 
measures he was elected to support. He de- 
clared earnestly his faith in the Christian's God. 
Dark clouds of rebellion were gathering at the 
South, giving tokens of the approaching storm ; 
but he told his friend that God was in these 
movements to overrule them for his glory ; that 
he had a deep conviction that divine wrath 
was to be poured out upon the people, and that 
he was to be an actor in the struggle, though 
he might not live to see the end. He spoke 
eloquently of the solemn grandeur of the Bible 
descriptions of God's wrath, repeating many 
passages, especially from Revelation, with great 
power. 

It was one of Mr. Lincoln's faults that these 
deep religious feelings were expressed only to 
his most intimate Christian friends. To others, 
immediately after the most solemn utterances, 
he conversed of common, and not unfrequently 



202 The Fokest Boy. 

of the most trifling matters. This was largely 
owing to marked peculiarities of mind, together 
with a great lack of religious instruction in his 
youth and early manhood. But it was a grave 
fault. The deeper spiritual experience of later 
years, with its increased light, modified, but 
did not wholly remove it. 

Soon after his election Mr. Lincoln visited 
Chicago. The people became wild with de- 
light at the sight of him, and the children, as 
might be expected, shared the general joy. 
One little fellow, who was led by the hand into 
the parlor where Mr. Lincoln was sitting, as he 
caught sight of him shouted, " Hurrah for Lin- 
coln ! " at the same time taking off his hat and 
swinging it over his head in true political 
style. It was a refreshing episode to the 
President elect from the dull formality of hand- 
shaking. He caught the little fellow in his 
strong hands, and tossing him toward the ceil- 
ing, exclaimed, " Hurrah for you /." 

At another time, while on this visit, a little 
German girl was seen by him approaching 



The Forest Boy. 203 

timidly. " What do you want, my little girl ? 
what can I do for you?" said the President. 
" I want your name," she replied. " But there 
are many other little girls that want my name, 
and as I cannot give it to them all, they will 
feel hurt if I give it to you." Assured by his 
pleasant and familiar manner, the little girl 
looked round upon her companions and replied, 
" Only eight of us, sir." Mr. Lincoln could 
not resist this childlike confidence, so he sat 
down amid the pressure of eager visitors, and ■ 
taking eight sheets of paper, wrote a line or 
two and his name upon each, and the little 
girls bore away their mementoes, with blessings 
upon the good President. 

On the 11th of February, 1861, Mr. Lincoln 
turned away from his home in Springfield, 111., 
and from the warm and sincere friends of earlier 
days, and set his face toward Washington. Al- 
ready the enemies of his country were making 
gigantic efforts to destroy the government he 
loved better than any other earthly good. His 
own life was threatened, it having: been determ- 



204 The Forest Boy. 

ined by banded traitors to kill him on his jour- 
ney. From the platform of the railroad car 
which was to convey him and his family away 
from his neighbors he spoke these words : 

"My friends, no one not in my position can 
appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. 
To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have 
lived more than a quarter of a century. Here 
my children were born, and here one of them 
lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see 
you again. A duty devolves upon me which is 
greater, perhaps, than that which has devolved 
upon any other man since the days of Washing- 
ton. He never could have succeeded except 
for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which 
he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot 
succeed without the same divine aid that sus- 
tained him, and on the same Almighty Beiug 
I place my reliance for support ; and I hope 
you, my friends, will pray that I may receive 
that divine assistance without which I cannot 
succeed, but with which success is certain. 
Again I bid you all an affectionate farewell." 



The Forest Boy. 205 

These farewell words were borne by the tele- 
graph to every part of the country. The peo- 
ple were somewhat surprised at their decided 
religious character, so seldom do statesmen 
honor God from their high places. Some 
called them "cant," and deprecated their 
utterance ; but none who knew Abraham Lin- 
coln had reason to doubt their sincerity, though 
none, unfortunately, could then know how little 
these serious words expressed of the much he 
really felt of his dependence upon God. 

The journey to "Washington was attended by 
a general outburst of popular favor and confi- 
dence. Mr. Lincoln replied cordially to the 
many greetings which he received, and in every 
speech showed how deeply he felt the responsi- 
bilities which he was about to assume. The 
reports of these occasions thus speak of the mul- 
titudes which thronged him, and his bearing in 
their midst : " People plunged at his arms with 
frantic enthusiasm, and all the infinite variety 
of shakes, from the wild and irrepressible pump- 
handle movement to the dead grip, was exe- 



206 The Forest Boy. 

cuted upon the devoted dexter and sinister of 
the President. Some glanced at his face as 
they grasped his hand; others invoked the 
blessings of Heaven upon him ; others affection- 
ately gave him their last gasping assurance of 
devotion ; others, bewildered and furious, with 
hats crushed over their eyes, seized his hand in 
a convulsive grasp, and passed on, as if they 
had not the remotest idea who, what, or where 
they were." 

Of the President the reporter says : " At 
first the kindness and amiability of his face 
strikes you; but as he speaks the greatness 
and determination of his nature are appar- 
ent. Something in his manner, even more 
than in his words, told how deeply he was 
affected by the enthusiasm of the people, and 
when he appealed to them for encouragement 
and support, every heart responded with mute 
assurance of both. There was the simplicity 
of greatness in his unassuming and confiding 
manner, that won its way to instant admiration. 
He looked somewhat worn with travel and the 



The Forest Boy. 207 

fatigues of popularity, but warmed to the cor- 
diality of his reception." 

Mr. Lincoln was fully aware, while thus hon- 
ored by the multitude, that the enemies of the 
holy cause of human freedom, which he so 
largely represented, were seeking his life. An 
attempt was made to throw the train from the 
track which bore him from Springfield. At 
Cincinnati hand grenades were found concealed 
in the cars. The government were apprised of 
these purposes, and a vigilant police force was 
put upon the track of the conspirators. A 
detective of great skill and experience under- 
took the management of the investigations. 
His keen search was entirely successful, and 
when Mr. Lincoln arrived at Philadelphia he 
was made acquainted with the whole plot. The 
persons and the exact plans of the assassins 
were known. Mr. Lincoln had an interview, 
at his hotel, with the detective, and, when he 
had heard his story, a way of escape was agreed 
upon. Mr. Lincoln had two engagements the 
next day, one to raise the American flag on 



208 The Forest Boy. 

Independence Hall, and another to address the 
Pennsylvania legislature at Harrisburgh. Both 
of these engagements he declared he would 
keep at the risk of his life. The plan of the 
plotters, twenty in number, was to crowd about 
his carriage as friends on his arrival at Balti- 
more, and first shoot Mr. Lincoln, and then, by 
throwing hand grenades among the attendants, 
and into the crowd, escape amid the slaughter 
and confusion. After Mr. Lincoln's interview 
with the detective, and soon after he had 
retired to rest, he was aroused by the announce- 
ment of a messenger from Senator Seward and 
General Scott, who had learned, independently 
of the detective, of an attempt upon his life, 
and who urged the necessity of an immediate 
and quiet entrance into Washington. The 
messenger returned on learning the plans 
of the detective. On the next day, Friday, the 
President met his engagements, and retired 
weary, late in the afternoon, to his hotel at 
Harrisburgh for rest. The people expected to 
greet him again when he should enter the train 



The Forest Boy. 209 

the next morning, on his return to Philadel- 
phia. Eemaining in his room until about six 
o'clock, he quietly left with a military friend, 
and, taking a carriage, soon entered a railroad 
train in waiting for him. The telegraph wires 
were cut just before the train left, that no news 
of his departure might go before him. He 
arrived at Philadelphia at half past ten, and 
was accompanied by the detective in a carriage 
to the depot of the Philadelphia and Baltimore 
Railroad, where the train was about starting, 
having been detained fortunately fifteen min- 
utes beyond its appointed time. They entered 
the sleeping car, passed quietly through Balti- 
more without changing cars, and arrived in 
"Washington at six o'clock Saturday morning. 
A friend, sent by Mr. Seward, was anxiously 
waiting with a carriage, and Mr. Lincoln was 
soon surrounded by his friends at Willard's 
hotel. The news of his safe arrival in Wash- 
ington flew over the country with lightning 
swiftness. His family were permitted to pass 
unmolested to their journey's end, as the in- 



210 The Forest Boy. 

tended victim had preceded them. Mr. Lin- 
coln's enemies were vexed and astonished at 
his escape, and, to cover their mortification, set 
afloat the pure fiction of his stealing into 
Washington in disguise. If it had been so, 
they only who made the necessity would have 
deserved the shame. 

On the fourth of March Mr. Lincoln deliv- 
ered his inaugural address on a platform at the 
east front of the capitol, and then took the oath 
of office, administered by Chief Justice Taney. 
Bitter enemies had determined that he should 
not see that moment. They meant to interpose 
the weapons of death. But his friends rushed 
to the capital in large numbers, and the veteran 
General Scott laid his plans of defense with 
great skill. Most of all, God watched over his 
chosen instrument for the emancipation of an 
oppressed race, and thus that night the Forest 
Boy of the "West entered the White House. 






The Forest Boy. 211 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE NATION'S "GREAT TROUBLE." 

"When Mr. Lincoln was a humble backwoods 
young man he could sit in his cabin door, and 
look upon the grand old oak or the wide prairie, 
and admire and enjoy the beauty of his situa- 
tion. In the White House, built and beautified 
by a nation's wealth, and furnished with ele- 
gance, he was not allowed a single moment of 
leisure to sit down and enjoy his elevated posi- 
tion. The rebellion of the South began several 
months before he became President. All 
through the war which followed he spoke of it 
sadly as " the great trouble." On the day that 
he became the head of the nation seven South- 
ern states had shot away from the bright con- 
stellation of the Union into the darkness of 
secession, and only about a week later they 
agreed to form themselves into a group called 



212 The Forest Boy. 

the confederacy, with its chief center at Bich- 
mond, Ya. Mr. Lincoln had told the Southern 
people that he was for peace ; that he would, 
not march soldiers into their territory if they 
did not first make war ; that he wished to exe- 
cute the laws made by Congress, and protect 
every part of the country in the enjoyment of 
its rights. But the rebels would not listen to 
his kind words. He was for peace, but they 
were for war. Their leading men, who had 
held office at Washington under the President 
who had just left the White House, had sent 
many thousands of the arms belonging to the 
United States into the South, and the rebels 
stole them from the arsenals. They took all 
the forts, with few exceptions, which were on 
their coasts. These did not belong to them, 
but to the whole people. A gallant little band 
in Fort Sumter, Charleston harbor, refused to 
surrender to them, and they immediately raised 
against them, on the nearest land, fortifications 
armed with many heavy guns, and occupied by 
twelve thousand fighting men. 



The Forest Boy. 213 

The rebel rulers marched soldiers toward 
Virginia, and boasted that their flag should 
wave over Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American 
liberty. They wanted to provoke Mr. Lincoln 
to commence the war, that they might lay the 
blame of it upon hiin. But he had said to them 
at first, " We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may 
have strained, it must not break our bond of 
affection." He continued to use the same kind 
language. 

While the rebels in the South were thus mak- 
ing war upon him, Mr. Lincoln was surrounded 
by enemies in Washington. They were found 
among the office-holders, among the officers of 
the army and navy, in the mansions of the rich, 
and in the crowded hotels, as well as among the 
multitudes which thronged the streets. What 
could he do? whom could he trust? It was a 
dreadful time. Timid friends were afraid he 
would do too much, and so prevent a reconcili- 
ation, which they still hoped to see ; while those 
who knew the rebels best were urging him to 



214 The Forest Boy. 

bolder measures. Through all these anxious 
days of suspense Mr. Lincoln was enduring ex- 
hausting labors. Office-seekers thronged the 
White House. Great preparations were being 
made in the army and navy to put down the 
rebellion. To all this business he gave his per- 
sonal attention, and yet many of his friends 
blamed him because they could not see his 
efforts, and their immediate results. "While the 
enemies of the Union were thus bold and active, 
and its friends irresolute and distrustful of one 
another, the rebels attacked and took Fort 
Sumter. This was on the afternoon of April 
12, 1861. The guns against Sumter roused the 
loyal people as from a deep sleep. They could 
not before believe that the South were really so 
foolish and wicked as to mean to make war. 
Now they said, they have chosen war, and for 
no good reason ; let them have war. It was 
plain now to the mass of the people that the 
Southern leaders wished a government to 
perpetuate and increase slavery, and if this 
was to be a free country, if there was to be any 



The Forest Boy. 215 

free country in the world, they must be con- 
quered. 

Mr. Lincoln soon learned that he now had 
friends. He called for seventy-five thousand 
soldiers. When the rebel leaders heard of this 
call they greeted it with a shout of laughter; 
but when the freemen of the North heard of it 
they responded with deeds rather than words. 
They did not laugh, for they knew that war 
was a serious and awful business. It was to 
them the call of duty, and the farmer left his 
untilled field, the mechanic his workshop, the 
scholar his pursuit of knowledge, and even the 
theological student left his sacred studies for 
the camp and battle-field. The poor heard the 
call and shouldered the musket, feeling that 
they owed the comfort of their quiet homes to 
the government which the slaveholders, always 
the oppressors of the poor, meant to destroy ; 
the rich, and the sons of the rich, who had been 
tenderly reared, shared, in the ranks, the hard- 
ships of the humblest. A man from Rhode 

Island, worth a million of dollars, who had just 
14 



216 The Forest Boy. 

purchased a passage ticket for Europe, where 
he expected to travel for pleasure, tore up the 
ticket and enlisted. The uprising was of God, 
for none but the divine power could so have 
wrought upon the hearts of a whole people. 
Party feeling was for the time lost in the gen- 
eral desire to crush the rebellion. Party lead- 
ers, who had been zealous political enemies, 
shook hands, and labored together with one 
heart. Mr. Lincoln's old opponent, Mr. Doug- 
laSj called upon him, with a mutual friend, two 
days after the fall of Sumter. He called to tell 
Mr. Lincoln he was with him in his efforts to 
save the government from the hands of traitors. 
Mr. Lincoln read to him the proclamation for 
seventy-five thousand men, which he had de- 
cided to send to the people the next day. 
" Make it two hundred thousand," exclaimed 
Mr. Douglas ; " you do not know the dishonest 
purposes of the rebels as well as 1 do." From 
that time these two great statesmen worked 
together. Mr. Lincoln's call for the men, and 
Mr. Douglas's approval of the measure, went 



The Forest Boy. 217 

forth by telegram the next morning. Mr. 
Douglas's voice was a trumpet call in Mr. 
Lincoln's favor to tens of thousands of strong 
men. Massachusetts was a few hours in ad- 
vance of all others in the promptness with 
which she sent men to the President's aid. 
Some of her Sixth Regiment heard the call at 
midnight, and left their beds, and traveled 
many miles before daylight to join their com- 
panions. On its way through Baltimore, on 
the nineteenth of April, it was attacked by a 
mob carrying a secession flag, and several of its 
members were killed or wounded. This mur- 
derous opposition to men marching to the de- 
fense of a common capital was, at a later period 
of the war, nobly disowned by the legislature 
of Maryland. That body did what it could to 
wipe out the stain upon its honor made by these 
lawless citizens, and kindly provided for the 
dependent friends of those who were killed. 

The sad incident at Baltimore only increased 
the zeal of the volunteers all over the country. 
" The mighty winds blew from every quarter to 



218 The Forest Boy. 

fan the flame of the sacred and unquenchable 
fire." From that time Mr. Lincoln had an 
army, and never again did the rebel leaders 
laugh at his power! The Hon. George Ban- 
croft, in his " Memorial Address," thus speaks 
of the bearing and efforts of Mr. Lincoln and 
the loyal people during this "great trouble:" 
""When it came home to the consciousness 
of the Americans that the war which they 
were waging was a war for the liberty of all 
the nations of the world, for freedom itself, 
they thanked God for giving them strength to 
endure the severity of the trial to which he put 
their sincerity, and nerved themselves for their 
duty with an inexorable will. The President 
was led along by the greatness of their self-sac- 
rificing example ; and as a child in a dark night, 
on a rugged way, catches hold of the hand of 
its father for guidance and support, he clung 
fast to the hand of the people, and moved calmly 
through the gloom. "While the statesmanship 
of Europe was mocking at the hopeless vanity 
of their efforts, they put forth such miracles of 



The Forest Boy. 219 

energy as the history of the world had never 
known. The contributions to the popular loans 
amounted in four years to twenty-seven and a 
half hundred millions of dollars ; the revenue of 
the country from taxation was increased seven- 
fold. The navy of the United States, drawing 
into the public service the willing militia of the 
seas, doubled its tonnage in eight months, and 
established an actual blockade from Cape Hat- 
teras to the Rio Grande ; in the course of the 
war it was increased fivefold in men and in 
tonnage, while the inventive genius of the 
country devised more effective kinds of ord- 
nance, and new forms of naval architecture in 
wood and iron. There went into the field, for 
various terms of enlistment, about two million 
of men, and in March last (at the close of the 
war) the men in the army exceeded a million. 
... In one single month one hundred and six- 
ty-five thousand men were recruited into serv- 
ice. Once, within four weeks, Ohio organized 
and placed in the field forty-two regiments of 
infantry, nearly thirty-six thousand men ; and 



220 The Forest Boy. 

Ohio was like other states in the east and in the 
west. The well-mounted cavalry numbered 
eighty-four thousand ; of horses and mules there 
was bought from first to last two thirds of a 
million. In the movement of the troops science 
came in aid of patriotism, so that, to choose a 
single instance out of many, an army twenty- 
three thousand strong, with its artillery, trains, 
baggage, and animals, was moved by rail from 
the Potomac to the Tennessee, twelve hundred 
miles, in seven days. On the long marches, 
wonders of military construction bridged the 
rivers, and wherever an army halted ample sup- 
plies awaited them at their ever-changing base. 
The vile thought that life is the greatest of 
blessings did not rise up. In six hundred and 
twenty-five battles and severe skirmishes blood 
flowed like water. It streamed over the grassy 
plains ; it stained the rocks ; the undergrowth 
of the forests was red with it ; and the armies 
marched on with majestic courage from one con- 
flict to another, knowing that they were fight- 
ing for God and liberty. The organization of 



The Forest Boy. 221 

the medical department met its infinitely mul- 
tiplied duties with exactness and dispatch. At 
the news of a battle the best surgeons of our 
cities hastened to the field to offer the untiring- 
aid of the greatest experience and skill. The 
gentlest and most refined of women left homes 
of luxury and ease to build hospital tents near 
the armies, and serve as nurses to the sick and 
dying. Besides the large supply of religious 
teachers by the public, the congregations spared 
to their brothers in the field the ablest ministers. 
The Christian Commission, which expended 
more than six and a quarter millions of dollars, 
sent nearly five thousand clergymen, chosen out 
of the best, to keep unsoiled the religious char- 
acter of the men, and made gifts of clothes and 
food and medicine. The organization of private 
charity assumed unheard-of dimensions. The 
Sanitary Commission, which had seven thousand 
societies, distributed, under the direction of an 
unpaid board, spontaneous contributions to the 
amount of fifteen millions in supplies or money, 
a million and a half in money from California 



222 The Forest Boy. 

alone, and dotted the scene of war from Paducah 
to Port Royal, from Belle Plain, Yirginia, to 
Brownsville, Texas, with homes and lodges." 

In the darkest hours Mr. Lincoln did not de- 
spair, though he bowed before God's chastening 
in great sorrow. In the hours of victory he was 
not boastful, but gave God the glory. He hes- 
itated long before calling upon the colored man 
for help ; but when his duty seemed plain he put 
many thousands of negro soldiers into the army, 
and bravely did they fight for their own and the 
white man's freedom. He waited long for the 
current of events to justify the emancipation of 
the slaves ; but when God, in these events, gave 
him the command, he gladly obeyed. On the 
first of January, 1863, he proclaimed liberty to 
three millions of bondmen. How the battles 
were fought, how victory for a long time wavered, 
and how, at last, it perched on the Union stand- 
ards, may be learned from the histories of the 
war. We will turn from the strife of the bat- 
tle-field to become more acquainted with him 
on whom the burden so heavilv bore. 



The Forest Boy. 223 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

LOG-CABIN SIMPLICITY AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

We have seen Abraham Lincoln among the 
humble laborers of the forest, a child of nature, 
in his intercourse with others never assuming 
superiority over the most lowly, nor assuming to 
be what he was not to obtain the favor of the 
great. As forest boy, farmer, surveyor, lawyer, 
and politician, he had never yet "put on airs" 
toward any he had ever known as friends. But 
as President, sitting in a chair more honorable 
than a throne, and having a power greater than 
that of any king or emperor, surrounded by the 
mighty men of his own people and the repre- 
sentatives of all the great nations of the world, 
could the common people approach him freely % 
could the poor tell him their wrongs and sor- 
rows, and obtain his sympathy and help ? could 
his log-cabin friends of earlier and humbler 



224 The Forest Boy. 

days be admitted to liis presence, and be recog- 
nized on the old familiar terms? These are 
natural inquiries, and such as did actually inter- 
est the masses of the American people when 
Mr. Lincoln entered the presidential mansion. 
We shall answer them by such well-attested 
facts as have come within our knowledge. 

Mr. John Hanks, a relative of Mr. Lincoln, 
his playmate in boyhood, and his helper in split- 
ting rails and making log-cabins, shall be the 
first witness. The following testimony was re- 
ceived, by the writer of this volume, from Mr. 
Hanks's own lips. He says : " Soon after Mr. 
Lincoln's first inauguration I called at the 
White House, and sent up my name. I trem- 
bled a little, but said to myself, Don't I know 
Abe Lincoln, and don't he know John Hanks ? 
Still the thought kept crowding into my mind, 
Abe's a long way out of sight of John now. 
Soon the messenger returned, saying. The Pres- 
ident says, Come up. I entered the office where 
Mr. Lincoln was sitting, surrounded, it seemed 
to me, by all the great men of the country. 



The Forest Boy. 225 

Rising from his seat, and stepping forward to 
meet me, he seized my extended hand with both 
of his, exclaiming, ' John, I'm glad to see you ! 
How do you do ? How is your family ? ' It 
was the welcome of other years, and • I forgot 
that he was President, and replied : ' I'm pretty 
well, I thank you, Abe ; how's your folks ? ' 
After we had chatted a while he asked me to 
come again, and I did call upon him several 
times, and he never seemed to feel above his old 
friend of the Illinois log-cabin." 

Mr. Lincoln spoke of the reception-room in 
the White House as " this place," and some- 
times more familiarly as " the shop," and re- 
marked jocosely, when he was going to attend 
the tedious business and ceremonious calls there, 
that he was going to " open shop." Tuesdays 
and Fridays he met his counselors, the heads of 
the several great departments of government, in 
a private " cabinet meeting." All other week- 
days his reception-room was open. Callers were 
requested to wait in the ante-chamber, and send 
in their cards ; and from the cards laid before 



226 The Forest Boy. 

him lie had visitors ushered in, giving prece- 
dence to acquaintance. Three or four hours 
each day they poured in, succeeding each other 
rapidly, and nine out of ten asking for office. 
He heard all patiently, and spoke to all in a 
manner so natural and easy as to make them 
feel entirely free in his presence. 

Having given the testimony of his Illinois 
friend concerning his frankness in the White 
House, we will call upon Goldwin Smith, a dis- 
tinguished Englishman, and a professor in one 
of his country's great universities, for his impres- 
sion of Mr. Lincoln at the executive mansion. 
He says : " You pass into the President's room 
of business through an ante-room, which has no 
doubt been passed by many an applicant for 
office and many an intriguer. There is no 
formality, nothing in the shape of a guard ; and 
if this man is really ' a tyrant worse than Robes- 
pierre,' he must have great confidence in the 
long-sufferance of his kind. The room is a com- 
mon office, the only ornament which struck the 
writer's eye being a photograph of John Bright. 



The Forest Boy. 227 

" Mr. Lincoln's manner and address are 
perfectly simple, modest, and unaffected, and 
therefore free from all vulgarity in the eyes of 
all not vulgar themselves. The language of 
the President, like his demeanor, was per- 
fectly simple. He did not let fall a single 
coarse or vulgar phrase, and all his words had 
a meaning." 

Mr. Carpenter, the painter of the picture 
" Signing the Emancipation Proclamation," 
thus speaks of his first interview with Mr. Lin- 
coln. He had formed the purpose of painting 
such a picture, and having obtained a letter of 
introduction to the President from the Hon. 
Mr. Lovejoy, he directed his steps toward the 
"White House. He says : " My first interview 
with the President took place at the customary 
Saturday afternoon public reception. Never 
shall I forget the thrill which went through my 
whole being as I first caught sight of that tall, 
gaunt form through a distant door, bowed down, 
it seemed to me, even then, with the weight of 
. the nation he carried upon his heart, as a mother 



228 The Forest Boy. 

carries her suffering child, and thought of the 
place he held in the affection of the people, and 
the prayers ascending constantly, day after day, 
in his behalf. The crowd was passing through 
the rooms, and presently it was my turn and 
name to be announced. Greeting me very 
pleasantly, he soon afterward made an appoint- 
ment to see me in the official chamber directly 
after close of the ' reception.' The hour named 
found me at the well-remembered door of the 
apartment, that door watched daily with so 
many conflicting emotions of hope and fear by 
the miscellaneous throng gathered there. The 
President was alone, and already deep in official 
business, which was always pressing. He re- 
ceived me with the frank kindness and simplic- 
ity so characteristic of his nature, and after 
reading Mr. Lovejoy's note, said: 'Well, Mr. 
Carpenter, we will turn you in loose here and 
try to give you a good chance to work out your 
idea.' . . . The President seemed much in- 
terested in my work from the first, but as it 
progressed his interest increased. I occupied 




Viewing Carpenter at Work on the Picture. 



The Fokest Boy. 231 

for a studio the spacious ' state dining-room ' of 
the White House in the southwestern corner of 
the mansion. He was in the habit of bringing 
many friends in to see what advance I was 
making from day to day, and I have known him 
to come by himself as many as three or four 
times in a single day. It seemed a pleasant 
diversion to him to watch the gradual progress 
of the work, and his suggestions, though some- 
times quaint and homely, were almost invariably 
excellent. Seldom was he ever heard to allude 
to anything which might be construed into a 
personality in connection with any member of 
the cabinet. On one occasion, however, I re- 
member with a sly twinkle of the eye he turned 
to a senatorial friend whom he had brought in 
to see the picture, and said, ' Mrs. Lincoln calls 
Mr. Carpenter's group, The nappy Family.' 1 
. . . There was a satisfaction to me simply in 
sitting in the room with him, though no words 
might be uttered, perhaps, for long intervals. 
Apparently absorbed with my pencil, and he 
with his papers, he would sometimes seem to 



232 The Forest Boy. 

forget my presence entirely. It was at such 
times that I loved to study him. Frequently 
when persons were admitted upon business, be- 
fore entering upon confidential discussions, they 
would turn an inquiring eye upon me, which 
Mr. Lincoln would meet by saying, ' O, you 
need not mind him; he is but a painter.' 
There was never a feeling of restraint or con- 
straint on my part ; his personal magnetism was 
so great, to hear him was like getting into the 
sunshine! As I now look back upon those 
privileged days, my heart is stirred with affec- 
tion for the just and noble man, second only to 
the filial regard due a parent. It has been my 
fortune to mingle quite freely, in my profes- 
sional life, with many distinguished public men. 
I have said repeatedly to friends, that I never 
knew one so utterly unconscious of distinction 
or power as Mr. Lincoln. He seemed to forget 
himself in the magnitude of his responsibilities. 
Under all circumstances he was precisely the 
same — plain, unostentatious, truth-loving, pure, 
and good. Dr. Stone, his family physician in 



The Forest Boy. 233 

Washington, once said to ine, ' I tell you, Mr. 
Lincoln is the purest hearted man I ever knew.' " 
Mr. Lincoln was at one time about to leave 
the White House for a drive to the " Sailors' 
Home." The carriage was at the gate, and 
" the Black Horse Cavalry " in attendance as a 
guard. As Mr. Lincoln reached the iron fence 
a plain-looking man approached him timidly. 
He had a difficulty which he desired the Pres- 
ident to settle for him. Mr. Lincoln stopped, 
threw his arm over the fence, placed his foot 
upon its stone foundations, and patiently heard 
the man while he, slowly and with great diffi- 
dence, told his complaint. When he had fin- 
ished, Mr. Lincoln took a card and pencil, and, 
sitting down upon the low stone coping, almost 
seeming to sit upon the pavements, wrote upon 
the card to the official concerned, " Examine 
this man's case." People passing by looked at 
the head of the nation thus seated, and then at 
one another, seeming to say, "How undignified." 
The President's absorbing thought was how he 

could lift a burden from one of the citizens of 
15 



234 The Fokest Boy. 

the republic, however humble. The deed done, 
two hearts went lighter to their respective ways. 

Mr. Lincoln's frankness is strikingly shown in 
his treatment at the White House of his colored 
guests. His honest, hearty cordiality knew no 
difference of race or condition. 

The first call upon the President of Frederick 
Douglass, the well-known antislavery lecturer, 
was one of mutual satisfaction. Some months 
afterward Mr. Lincoln, hearing that Mr. Douglass 
was in the city, desired to consult him on points of 
executive duty, in reference to which he thought 
his opinion valuable. The presidential carriage 
was sent to his boarding-house with the message, 
" Come up and take a cup of tea." The invita- 
tion was accepted, and the President and his 
guest enjoyed a pleasant chat. Mr. Douglass re- 
marked afterward, that by no word or look dur- 
ing the interview was he made to feel that he 
was a negro. 

An earnest friend of the much-wronged negro 
republic of Hayti was once urging upon Mr. 
Lincoln his desire that the United States should 



The Foeest Boy. 235 

"recognize" that government, and, thinking to 
make the matter more acceptable to him, re- 
marked that probably the President of Hayti 
would send, as a representative to Washington, 
not a negro, but some one of the educated men 
of mixed blood, who might be regarded as a 
Spanish American white man. Mr. Lincoln 
replied with much animation, " I don't see the 
necessity for that. An educated black man 
would be as dignified, I have no doubt, as a 
ginger-colored one." 

Toward the close of one of the public " re- 
ceptions," in the early part of Mr. Lincoln's ad- 
ministration, when the rush of visitors was in a 
measure abated, a group of negroes in their 
" finest " attire were seen in earnest consultation 
on the lawn in front of the executive mansion. 
Finally they started together, and ascended the 
stairs to the reception room. They approached 
the President hesitatingly ; but the moment he 
saw them he stepped forward to meet them, 
saying, " I am glad to see you," giving each a 
hearty, shake of the hand. When they reached 



236 The Forest Boy. 

the street again they paused, and sent up a 
shout for " Linkuni," which was followed by- 
more quiet exclamations of " God bless Mr. 
Linkum," as they disappeared down the crowded 
street. 

Three little girls, daughters of a mechanic, 
neatly but plainly dressed, went into the White 
House one reception day. After curiously gaz- 
ing, as they were swept along in the crowd, first 
at the President and then at the objects about 
them, not having courage to offer him their 
hands, as others did, they were about to pass by. 
But Mr. Lincoln saw them, and called out, 
" Little girls, are you going to pass me without 
shaking hands ? " He then left unnoticed for a 
moment ail others, and, stooping over, shook 
the hand of each child. 

A lady who was visiting "Washington wrote 
the following incidents, which came under her 
own observation, to her friends in Massachusetts : 
" A negro came to ask the President for a pass, 
and remonstrated with him because he told him 
he must go to get advice from a certain officer. 



The Fokest Boy. 237 

' But it is all tlie way to the Capitol,' said the 
negro, ' and it is so cold to-day. I can tell you 
myself that I am all right.' So the President 
yielded, and heard him prove his locality by 
asking questions of him. An Irish boy came 
in about the same time, and Mr. Lincoln said, 
'Well, did you get the place?' 'No, sir; I 
want another recommend.' ' Where is the one 
I gave you? ' ' I lost it.' ' Careless ! I have a 
great mind not to give you another.' It was 
the father of the nation dealing with his chil- 
dren ; generally patient, but sometimes fretted." 

It would have been remarkable indeed if Mr. 
Lincoln had never " fretted," nor shown indig- 
nation at the spirit and conduct of some who 
approached him for favors. 

Two women once came into the reception- 
room to urge some request which they deemed 
very important. The younger one, not meeting 
with the success she desired, used very saucy 
language to the President. This was going a 
little too far, and he called " Old Daniel," and 
bid him show them the way out of the room. 



238 The Forest Boy. 

The indignant servant obeyed with a hearty 
good-will. 

A man who had been an officer in the army, 
but was dismissed in disgrace, came with his 
complaints to Mr. Lincoln. He heard his story, 
and told him. he could do nothing for him. 
But the man would not be refused, and not only 
wearied him by his continual coming, but finally 
used insulting language. The President did 
not feel that he ought to suffer that without re- 
proof. He laid aside his papers, arose calmly, 
but with an earnestness before which the offend- 
er quailed, led him to the door, and thrust him 
out, saying, " Sir, I give you fair warning, 
never to show yourself in this room again. I 
can bear censure, but not insult." 

Such evidences of exhausted patience very 
seldom occurred at the White House, but 
such melting scenes as the following were 
frequently witnessed. It is described by the 
Rev. Mr. Henderson, of Louisville, Kentucky : 
" Among a large number of persons waiting in 
the room to speak with Mr. Lincoln on a cer- 



The Forest Boy. 239 

tain day in November, 1864, was a small, pale, 
delicate-looking boy about ten years old. The 
President saw him standing, looking feeble and 
faint, and said, ' Come here, my boy, and tell 
me what you want.' The boy advanced, placed 
his hand on the arm of the President's chair, 
and, with bowed head and timid accents, said : 
' Mr. President, I have been a drummer in a 
regiment for two years, and my colonel got 
angry with me and turned me off. I was taken 
sick, and have been a long time in hospital. 
This is the first time I have been out, and I 
came to see if you could not do something for 
me.' The President looked at him kindly and 
tenderly, and asked him where he lived. ' I 
have no home,' answered the boy. ' Where is 
your father \ ' ' He died in the army,' was the 
reply. 'Where is your mother? ' continued the 
President. ' My mother is dead also. I have 
no mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters, 
and,' bursting into tears, he added, ' no friends ; 
nobody cares for me.' Mr. Lincoln's eyes filled 
with tears, and he said to him, ' Can't you sell 



240 The Forest Boy. 

newspapers ? ' ' No,' said the boy ; ' I am too 
weak, and the surgeon of the hospital told me I 
must leave, and I have no money, and no place 
to go to.' The scene was wonderfully affecting. 
The President drew forth a card, and addressing 
a certain official, to whom his request was 
law, gave special directions to ' care for this poor 
boy.' The wan face of the little drummer lit up 
with a happy smile as he received the paper, 
and he went away convinced that he had one 
good and true friend at least in the person of the 
President." 

One of Mr. Lincoln's old friends and his wife, 
from the West, visiting Washington, were recog- 
nized with the cordiality of their former inter- 
views. On one occasion they received at their 
hotel, from the White House, a card inviting 
them to a ride in the presidential carriage. 
While waiting its arrival the question arose 
whether he should receive the President in 
gloves, the article never having been used by 
either of them in the days of their former ac- 
quaintance, except as a protection from the cold. 



The Forest Boy. 241 

In the mean time Mr. Lincoln, as lie was about 
stepping into his carriage, was discussing the 
same question. The ladies in both cases advised 
gloves, and the friend put his on, while Mr. 
Lincoln compromised the matter by putting his 
into his pocket, to be used as occasion suggested. 

When the parties were well seated in the 
carriage, Mr. Lincoln began slyly to draw on his 
gloves, while the friend was as diligently work- 
ing his off. Discerning the state of affairs, they 
both burst into a hearty laugh, which the Pres- 
ident enjoyed exceedingly, and they were soon 
talking earnestly together ungloved, and on the 
old familiar footing. 

A good-sized volume might be made of such 
illustrations of Mr. Lincoln's freedom from the 
pride of station, and his maintenance of a child- 
like simplicity of character while in the exercise 
of an official power which shaped the destinies 
of millions of the human race. 

We shall next observe him a little more 
closely, and shall find that in the nobler qual- 
ities of the heart he is equally worthy our study. 



242 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

TENDERNESS AND SYMPATHY. 

The dreadful consequences of the slaveholders' 
war, which made so many desolate homes and 
so many bleeding hearts, came of course imme- 
diately under the President's notice. None 
knew the sorrows of the people better than he, 
and none felt them more keenly. He did not 
hide himself in his immediate official duties, and 
keep individual suffering out of sight. He 
rather sought to know that he might relieve it. 
He brought from the log-cabin to the White 
House not only a cordial greeting for all classes 
of the people, but also a desire to promote their 
welfare to the full extent of his influence. 
Having such feelings, it is not strange that the 
soldiers and their friends should have been the 
special subjects of his kind solicitude. 

In the summer of 1862 a young man belong- 



The Forest Boy. 243 

ing to a Vermont regiment was tried for sleep- 
ing at his post, and sentenced to be shot. The 
day was fixed for the execution, and the young 
soldier prepared calmly for his fate, without 
even requesting efforts for his pardon. But the 
President had been informed of the sentence, 
and he gave the case his immediate attention. 
He learned that the youth had been brought 
under sentence of death by a noble effort, not 
only to do all his own duty to his country, but 
also to aid a fellow-soldier in the discharge of 
his. He had been on duty one night, and on 
the following night he volunteered to take the 
place of a companion whom he deemed too sick 
to stand guard himself. On the third night he 
was again called out ; but nature was too strong 
for his manly resolution, and sleep overpowered 
him at his post. Mr. Lincoln signed his pardon, 
and sent it to the camp. The morning before 
the execution having arrived, the President, not 
having heard whether the pardon had reached 
the officers concerned, began to feel uneasy. 
He ordered a telegram to be sent to the camp, 



244 The Forest Boy. 

but received no answer. State papers conld 
not fix his thoughts, and the burdens of the na- 
tion at large could not banish from his mind 
the critical situation of the periled soldier-boy. 
He must know that he was safe. He ordered 
the carriage, and over a dusty road and beneath 
a scorching sun rode rapidly ten miles. Having 
ascertained that the pardon was received and 
the execution averted, he returned to busy him- 
self again in great concerns, and to forget per- 
haps the incident ; but the one whose life was 
saved did not forget it, nor fail of the deepest 
gratitude. Before coming to the war he had 
given his heart to God, and he had lived a 
Christian life in camp. In pardoning him the 
President had not only secured his continued 
prayers, but increased their fervency. When 
the campaign opened in the following spring 
the young man was with his regiment near 
Yorktown, Va. They were ordered to attack 
a fort, and he fell by the first volley of the en- 
emy. His comrades caught him up, and bore 
him, bleeding and dying, from the field. 



The Forest Boy. 245 

" Bear witness," lie said, " that I have proved 
myself not a coward, and I am not afraid to 
die." Then, making a last effort, his dying 
breath was spent in a prayer for Abraham 
Lincoln ! 

A personal friend of the President says he 
called upon him in the early part of the war, 
and found him holding in his hand the freshly 
signed pardon of a young soldier who had been 
sentenced to be shot for sleeping at his post. 
He remarked, as he read it to his friend, " I 
could not think of going into eternity with the 
blood of this poor young man upon my skirts. 
It is not to be wondered at that a boy raised on 
a farm, probably in the habit of going to bed at 
dusk, should, when required to watch, fall 
asleep ; and I cannot consent to shoot him for 
such an act." 

The body of this young man was found among 
the dead on the bloody field of Fredericksburgh. 
Near his heart lay the photograph of his pre- 
server, under which was written, " God bless 
President Lincoln." 



246 The Forest Boy. 

A poor washerwoman of Troy had a son, 
weak in mind, but strong in body. Some vil- 
lainous " enlisters " persuaded him into the 
army, and put the bounty money into their 
pockets. The poor mother for a long time, in 
vain, sought her boy about the city. Finally, 
learning that he had entered the army, she 
found her way to Washington. Friendless, 
poor, not knowing what New York regiment 
her son was in, what could she do. She failed 
for some time to see the President, but finally 
intercepted him in his walk from the War 
Department to the White House. No dark- 
ened brow nor cold words repelled the suffering 
mother. He heard her story, took out a card, 
wrote the boy's name and residence, and sent it 
to the War Department, with the command : 

" Find this poor boy, and return him to his 
mother. "A. Lincoln." 

" Old Daniel," the well-known servant at the 
White House, tells the following story to Mr. 
Carpenter: A poor man of Philadelphia had 
furnished a substitute for the army, but was 



The Forest Boy. 247 

afterward made intoxicated by some wicked 
companions, and thus induced to enlist. Vexed 
with himself, and all concerned in the matter, 
he deserted soon after reaching the army, was 
arrested, tried, and sentenced to be shot, lie 
was to die on Saturday, and on the preceding 
Monday his wife, with a babe in her arms, was 
watching at the door of the President's recep- 
tion-room. For nearly three days she waited 
in vain. At the end of the third day the Presi- 
dent was passing by the ante-room through a 
private passage to go for rest and refreshment 
to his room. Daniel says : " On his way through 
he heard the baby cry. He instantly went back 
to his office and rung the bell. ' Daniel,' said 
he, ' is there a woman with a baby in the ante- 
room ? ' I said there was, and, if he would 
permit me to say it, I thought it was a case he 
ought to- see, for it was a matter of life and 
death. He said, ' Send her to me at once.' 
She went in, told her story, and the President 
pardoned her husband. As the woman came 
out from his presence her eyes were lifted, and 



248 The Forest Boy. 

her lips moving in prayer, the tears streaming 
down her cheeks. I went up to her, and pull- 
ing her shawl, said, 'Madam, it was the baby 
that did it.'" 

A correspondent of the Chicago Tribune re- 
lates the following anecdote: "I dropped in 
upon Mr. Lincoln, and found him busily en- 
gaged in counting greenbacks. ' This, sir,' 
said he, ' is something out of my usual line ; but 
a President of the United States has a multi- 
plicity of duties not specified in the Constitution 
nor acts of Congress ; this is one of them. The 
money belongs to a poor negro, who is a porter 
in the Treasury Department, who is at present 
very sick with the small-pox. He is now in the 
hospital, and could not draw his pay, because 
he could not sign his name. I have been at 
considerable trouble to overcome the difficulty, 
and get it for him. I am now dividing the 
money, and putting by a portion labeled with 
my own hand, according to his wish ;' and his 
excellency proceeded to indorse the package 
very carefully." 



The Forest Boy. 249 

During a reception day, after a crowd of 
eager seekers had been in the presence of Mr. 
Lincoln, it came at last the turn of a woman 
who had been long and anxiously waiting. She 
was somewhat advanced in years, and plainly 
clad, a faded shawl being thrown over her 
shoulders, and a much worn hood covering her 
head. Her story, simply stated, was of itself 
an eloquent appeal. Her husband and three 
sons, all she had, had enlisted. Her husband 
had been killed in battle. Could she ask less 
of the country to whom she had given so much 
than the return of her eldest son ? The Presi- 
dent heard this request, and said, " Certainly, 
if her prop was taken away, she was justly en- 
titled to one of her boys," and he immediately 
wrote an order for the discharge of the eldest. 
She gratefully took the order, and sought him 
at the encampment of his regiment ; but the 
burden of her sorrowing heart was increased on 
learning that the object of her love and search 
had been wounded in a recent battle, and lay 

sick in a hospital. She reached the side of his 
16 



250 The Forest Boy. 

cot only in time to comfort bis dying moments 
with a mother's blessing. She saw him laid in 
a soldier's grave, and hastened again to the 
President with his order, on the back of which 
was stated by the surgeon of the hospital the 
sad facts concerning the one it was intended to 
discharge. He was much moved by her story, 
and said, " I know what you want me to do 
now, and I shall do it without your asking. I 
shall release to you your second son." Taking 
up his pen, he began to write the order, while 
the almost broken-hearted but deeply grateful 
woman stood at his side, and passed her hand 
fondly over his head, and stroked his rough hair 
as she would have done that of her own boy. 
"When he had finished writing he handed her 
the paper, his full heart finding relief in tears, 
and said, " Now you have one of the two left, 
and I have one; that is no more than right." 
She took the order, and, placing her hand again 
reverently upon his head, while the tears 
streamed down her cheeks, and her voice fal- 
tered with emotion, said, "The Lord bless you, 



The Forest Boy. 251 

Mr. President. May you live a thousand years, 
and may you always be the head of this great 
nation." 

Not only the petitions of suffering men and 
women reached the ears and touched the heart 
of President Lincoln, but the requests of chil- 
dren even were heard and answered. The 
children of Concord, Mass., sent him a "me- 
morial," asking for the freedom of all slave 
children. He did not toss it aside with a sneer, 
saying, "What do boys and girls know about 
such great matters ? but sat down and wrote 
with his own hand the following beautiful 
letter : 

" Tell those little people I am very glad 
their young hearts are so full of just and gen- 
erous sympathy, and that, while I have not the 
power to grant all they ask, I trust that they 
will remember that God has, and that, as it 
seems, he wills to do it. . " A. Lincoln." 

To the officers of the government, high in 
influence, and nearest to him in power, the 



252 The Forest Boy. 

members of his cabinet, he showed the same 
childlike tenderness and freedom from arro- 
gance or jealousy. At the close of the war Mr. 
Stanton, the popular Secretary of War, offered 
Mr. Lincoln, in writing, his resignation, saying 
that he had accepted the office to see the rebel- 
lion ended, and now that the war was over he 
wished to be relieved. He added that he could 
bear a heartfelt tribute to Mr. Lincoln's con- 
stant friendship and faithful devotion to the 
country. Mr. Lincoln's generous emotions 
toward his secretary almost overcame him. 
He tore in pieces the paper containing the 
resignation, and, throwing his arms about Mr. 
Stanton's neck, exclaimed, " Stanton, I cannot 
spare you ! Tou have been a good friend and 
faithful public servant. It is not for you to say 
when you will no longer be needed here." The 
friends of both were present, and were melted 
to tears by the incident. 

On the Monday before his death, being on 
his way from Richmond to "Washington, Mr. 
Lincoln stopped at City Point, on the James 



The Forest Boy. 253 

River. He called upon the head surgeon there, 
and told him he wished to visit every hospital 
under his charge, and shake hands with every 
soldier. The surgeon expressed his surprise, 
and remarked that he was not probably aware 
how severe his task would be, for there were in 
the hospitals at least six thousand men. Mr. 
Lincoln smiled, and replied that he " guessed 
he was equal to the task ; at any rate he would 
try, and go as far as he could. He should never 
probably see the boys again, and he wanted 
them to know that he appreciated what they 
had done for their country." 

As the surgeon was not able to turn Mr. 
Lincoln aside from his purpose, they com- 
menced their rounds together. The President 
went to the bedside of each, shaking hands with 
all, speaking words of cheer to some, making 
kind inquiries of others, and receiving from all 
the heartiest welcome. In one of the wards 
lay a wounded rebel soldier, receiving the same 
care as the rest ; he watched the tall form of 
Mr. Lincoln with deep interest as he passed 



254 The Foeest Boy. 

from one to the other, and, as he approached 
his bedside, he raised himself on his elbow in 
bed and extended his hand, exclaiming in tears, 
" Mr. Lincoln, I have long wanted to see you 
to ask your forgiveness for raising my hand 
against the old flag." Mr. Lincoln wept freely, 
and taking the hand of the penitent rebel, he 
assured him of his forgiveness and good-will. 

When the tour of the hospitals was made, 
Mr. Lincoln returned to the surgeon's office. 
He had scarcely entered when a messenger 
came, saying one ward had been omitted, and 
"the boys" wanted to see their President. 
Though tired, back he went, and finished his 
proposed task. 

When they had again entered the office, the 
surgeon expressed the fear that Mr. Lincoln's 
arm would be lame with so much hand-shaking. 
" I guess not," said the President ; " I have 
strong muscles," and stepping immediately to 
the door, he took up a heavy ax and began to 
chop a large log of wood. The chips flew in 
every direction under his vigorous strokes, 



The Forest Boy. 255 

showing something of the " muscle " of his log- 
cabin days. Pausing, he held the ax out stead- 
ily at full arm's length. Strong men who 
stood by, men accustomed to hard labor, vainly 
tried to do the same thing. The President 
then returned to the office and took a glass of 
lemonade, refusing anything stronger, while the 
chips " which Father Abraham chopped " were 
being gathered up as mementoes. 

Such was the sympathy and tenderness of the 
people's ruler, " a true born king of men." 



256 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XXY. 

PLEASANT HUMORS. 

The "jokes" of Mr. Lincoln have been re- 
peated wherever his name has been spoken, 
and they have become known much better than 
the feelings of the heart from which they 
flowed. They appear to many as the evidence 
of a trifling mind, and as utterances made 
when silence or seriousness would have been 
wiser. Those who judge thus have not learned 
what wisdom was often conveyed in his simple, 
well-told " story ;" what sharp rebuke to an 
impertinent teaser; what gentle refusal to a 
solicitation to which his kindness could not 
interpose a direct " no ; " and especially, what 
relief to his overburdened, almost crushed 
heart. Those who have read only Mr. Lin- 
colns "jokes," and read perhaps as his many 
silly and coarse remarks which he never 



The Forest Boy. 257 

littered, do not know that his habitual and life- 
long feeling was one of sadness. " His was the 
saddest countenance I ever knew," said the 
artist who studied it for six months. Mr. Ban- 
croft eloquently says : " Mr. Lincoln was a man 
of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest earnest- 
ness at his heart." Said his little son, in the 
agony of his grief on learning that his father 
was shot, and being assured by a friend that he 
had gone to heaven, " Then I am glad he has 
gone there, for he was never happy here." 

A gentleman who was his law partner for 
twenty years thus sketches this feature of his 
character : " Mr. Lincoln was a sad-looking 
man ; his melancholy dripped from him as 
he walked. His apparent gloom impressed his 
friends, and created a sympathy for him, one 
means of his great success. He was gloomy, 
abstracted, and joyous, rather humorous, by 
turns. I do not think he knew what real joy 
was for more than twenty-three years." 

Mr. Lincoln's pleasant humors were the nat- 
ural relief of his burdened spirit. The follow- 



258 The Forest Boy. 

ing touching incident contains Mr. Lincoln's 
own statement of this fact. On one of the 
darkest days of 1862, when a heavy gloom 
hung over the country, and when the news of 
fresh disaster had just been announced, a 
deeply earnest loyal member of Congress called 
upon the President, who, after the first saluta- 
tion, commenced telling a humorous incident. 
The congressman was in no mood to hear, and, 
starting up, said, " Mr. President, I did not 
come here this morning to hear stories ; it is too 
serious a time." Instantly the smile upon Mr. 
Lincoln's face gave way to an expression of the 
deepest seriousness. "Sit down again, sir," 
he said, in a tone of tender earnestness ; "I 
respect you as an earnest, sincere man. You 
cannot be more anxious than I am constantly, 
and I say to you now that were it not for this 
occasional vent I should die ! " 

The sending forth of a proclamation to eman- 
cipate millions of slaves was a great responsi- 
bility, and Mr. Lincoln felt it to be such. He 
watched the course of God's providence, lie 



The Forest Boy. 259 

thought deeply and prayed fervently in relation 
to the subject. When he at last decided to 
issue it, and had written it out carefully, he 
called his cabinet together to read it to them. 
What a solemn moment ! Mr. Lincoln saw 
clearly the vast consequences of that document, 
and felt keenly his relation to them. What he 
saw and felt was weighing down his mind too 
heavily for the reading and conversation which 
the occasion required. He must have some 
relief. Before naming the business of the 
meeting, he took down from a shelf a volume, 
"Artemus Ward — His Book," read a whole 
chapter of its drollery, and laughed most heart- 
ily. Few could understand the propriety of 
this, perhaps there was no propriety in it, and 
fewer could desire or enjoy such reading at 
such a time. But to Mr. Lincoln it was like a 
draught of fresh air to a man gasping for breath. 
He laid down the book refreshed, and the ex- 
pression of his countenance, the tone of his 
voice, and his whole manner instantly changed. 
If his dignified audience were before disgusted, 



260 The Forest Boy. 

they were now awed, as he announced the 
object of the meeting, and read the document 
which was to make tyranny tremble, and to 
rejoice the hearts of the friends of freedom 
throughout the world. 

Mr. Lincoln kept some work of wit and 
humor in a corner of his desk, so that, when 
exhausted with labor or over-pressed with care, 
he could take it out, and give fresh elasticity to 
his mind by the perusal of a few pages. Once 
when he had been sorely beset continually from 
seven in the evening until nearly twelve, and 
while still surrounded by men high in office, 
and by numerous large documents demanding 
attention, he pushed all aside, and assuming an 
easy and comical air, said to one of the party, 
" Have you seen the Nasby Papers ? There is 
a chap out in Ohio who has been writing a 
series of letters in the newspapers over the sig- 
nature of Petroleum V. Nasby. Some one sent 
me a collection of them the other day. I am 
going to write to Petroleum to come down 
here, and I intend to tell him if he will com- 



The Forest Boy. 261 

nmnicate his talent to me I will swap places 
with him." Mr. Lincoln, on finishing these 
remarks, took a copy of the letters from his 
desk, read one to the company, laughed 
heartily, and obtained from it the brief relief 
that many statesmen would have sought from a 
glass of brandy or wine. He then tossed the 
book aside, and returned to his exhausting 
labor, his countenance at once assuming its 
melancholy earnestness. 

We have seen, in the course of our sketch of 
Mr. Lincoln, how pungent he often made his 
" little story " in argument, and how powerful 
in drawing the masses' to him. A few illustra- 
trations of these facts are at hand. Mr. Lincoln 
had met the rebel " Peace Commissioners " on 
board a steamer near Fortress Monroe. After 
a brief discussion, the conversation turned to 
the slavery question. Mr. Stephens, the chief 
speaker for the commissioners, said : " If the 
South should consent to peace on the basis of 
the Emancipation Proclamation the Southern 
society would be ruined ; no work would be 



262 The Forest Boy. 

done because the slaves would work only upon 
compulsion, nothing would be cultivated, and 
both blacks and whites would starve. This was 
raising a dust in which no peace negotiations 
could be made, so Mr. Lincoln settled that line 
of argument by the following story : " Mr. 
Stephens," he said, addressing the rebel vice- 
president with a roguish twinkle of his eye, 
" you ought to know a great deal better about 
this matter than Z, for you have always lived 
under the slave system. I can only say in reply 
to your statement of the case, that it reminds 
me of a man out in Illinois by the name of Case, 
who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very 
large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to 
feed them, and how to get around this was a 
puzzle to him. At length lie hit upon the plan 
of planting an immense field of potatoes, and 
when they were sufficiently grown he turned 
the whole herd into the field, and let them have 
full swing, thus not only saving the trouble of 
feeding the hogs, but also that of digging the 
potatoes! Charmed with his sagacity, he 



The Fokest Boy. 263 

stood one day leaning against the fence count- 
ing his hogs, when a neighbor came along. 
' Well, well, Mr. Case,' said he, this is all very 
fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now, 
but you know that out here in Illinois the frost 
comes early, and the ground freezes a foot deep. 
Then what are they going to do ? " This was a 
view of the case Mr. Case had not taken into 
the account. Butchering time for hogs was way 
on in December or January. He scratched his 
head, and at length stammered, ' It may come 
pretty hard on their snouts, but I don't see but 
that it will be, Root, hog, or die.'' " 

The conversation of the commissioners was 
turned immediately to other features of the 
grave question in hand. 

Mr. Lincoln's stories were used by him to 
good purpose in shutting off mistaken efforts on 
the part of his friends to lessen his charity 
toward his political opponents. He disliked 
any conversation which had this tendency, and 
was very apt, when it began, to be reminded of 
something laughable which put the gossiper off 



264 The Forest Boy. 

his track. A friend on one occasion was rising 
seven times in reference to the course of opposi- 
tion to Mr. Lincoln taken by two prominent 
members of his party, when he interrupted him 
by saying : " It's not worth fretting about ; it 
reminds me of an old acquaintance, who, having 
a son of a scientific turn, bought him a micro- 
scope. The boy went around experimenting 
with his glass upon everything that came in his 
way. One day at the dinner table his father 
took up a piece of cheese. ' Don't eat that, 
father,' said the boy, ' it is full of wrigglers ! ' 
'My son,' replied the old gentleman, taking at 
the same time a huge bite, ' let 'em wriggle ; I 
can stand it if they can.'" 

Mr. Lincoln's ever-ready story was wonder- 
fully potent in turning aside any unpleasant 
differences between his associates in the govern- 
ment, or those high in office about him. When 
General Grant came into chief command of the 
armies, Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, at 
their first interview could not agree with him 
as to the number of troops to be left for the 



The Forest Boy. 265 

defense of Washington while the main army 
marched on Richmond. A correspondent of 
the " New York Herald " thus gives the conver- 
sation, and the happy turn given to the dispute 
between these high officials : 

" "Well, General," remarked the Secretary, " I 
suppose you have left enough men to strongly 
garrison the forts around Washington ? " 

"No," said Grant coolly ; " I couldn't do that." 

" Why not ? " cried Stanton nervously, " why 
not ? why not ? " 

" Because I have already sent the men to the 
front." replied Grant calmly. 

" That wont do," cried Stanton, more nerv- 
ous than before. " It's contrary to my plans. 
I can't allow it. I'll order the men back." 

" I shall need the men there, and you can't 
order them back," answered Grant. 

" Why not ? " inquired Stanton again. " Why 
not? why not?" 

" I believe that I rank the Secretary in this 

matter," was the quiet reply. 

" Yery well," said Stanton, a little warmly, 
17 



266 , The Forest Boy. 

" we'll see the President about that. I'll have 
to take you to the President." 

" That's right," politely observed Grant. 
" The President ranks us both." 

Arrived at the White House, the General and 
the Secretary asked to see the President upon 
important business, and in a few moments the 
good-natured face of Mr. Lincoln appeared. 

" Well, gentlemen," said the President, with 
a genial smile, " what do you want of me ? " 

" General," said Stanton stiffly, " state your 
case." 

" I have no case to state," replied General 
Grant. " I am satisfied as it is ; " thus outflank- 
ing the Secretary, and displaying the same 
strategy in diplomacy as in war. 

"Well, well," said the President, laughing, 
" state your case, Secretary." 

Secretary Stanton obeyed ; General Grant 
said nothing; the President listened very attent- 
ively. When Stanton had concluded, the 
President crossed his legs, rested his elbow on 
liis knee, twinkled his eyes quaintly, and said: 



The Forest Boy. 267 

" Now, Secretary, you know we have been try- 
ing to manage this army for two years and a 
half, and yon know we haven't done much with 
it. We sent over the mountains and brought 
Mister Grant, as Mrs. Grant calls him, to man- 
age it for us, and now I guess we had better let 
Mister Grant have his own way." 

Nobody ranked the President, so this was de- 
cisive ; but no doubt the feelings of the Secre- 
tary were saved by the manner and spirit in 
which he was overruled. 

Mr. Lincoln not only used his pleasantries to 
take the offense from a refusal, but at other 
times to give a zest to a favor granted. A Ger- 
man paper publishes the following illustration 
in point : " A lieutenant, whom debts compelled 
to leave his fatherland and the service of his 
country, succeeded in being admitted to Pres- 
ident Lincoln, and, by reason of his commend- 
able and winning deportment, together with his 
intelligent appearance, was promised a lieuten- 
ant's commission in a cavalry regiment. He 
was so enraptured with his success that he 



268 The. Forest Boy. 

deemed it his duty to inform the President that 
he belonged to one of the oldest families of the 
nobility of Germany. ' O, never mind that,' 
said Mr. Lincoln, ' you will not find that to be 
an obstacle in the way of your promotion.' " 

"We cannot further detail these pleasant hu- 
mors, which show more plainly than any mere 
description could do, the sincere and noble 
nature of Abraham Lincoln. The following is 
a pleasing testimony to their moral character by 
Mr. Carpenter, the artist, and familiar friend of 
the President : " I feel that it is due to Mr. 
Lincoln's memory to state, that during the entire 
period of my stay in "Washington, after witness- 
ing his intercourse with almost all classes of 
people, including governors, senators, members 
of Congress, officers of the army, and familiar 
friends, I cannot recollect to have heard him 
relate a circumstance to any one of them all, 
that would have been out of place uttered in a 
ladies' drawing-room. . . . "What I have stated is 
a voluntary testimony from a standpoint, I sub- 
mit, entitled to respectful consideration." 



The Forest Boy. 269 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 

Our acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln thus far 
has shown us that from his childhood he rever- 
enced the name of God. Though associated 
with men who used profane language, he never 
formed the wicked habit of swearing. From 
his mother's lips he had heard the truths of the 
Bible, and early learned to love the study of its sa- 
cred pages. As soon as he was elected President 
the nation began to hear from him serious refer- 
ence to his sense of dependence upon God for 
strength and wisdom in his great work. When 
he entered upon the duties of the presidential 
office, his messages and proclamations expressed 
more confidence in God, and breathed more of 
the spirit of true piety, than had ever before been 
manifest in the head of our republic. The 
earnest Christians of the country were of course es- 



270 The Forest Boy. 

pecially pleased with this ; but they knew that he 
might do and say all this and yet not love Christ. 
They desired to be assured that he was not 
merely almost a Christian, but a truly converted 
man ; they wanted him to he and to prof ess him- 
self such, that the light of his example might 
shine forth from his high station, and thus glo- 
rify his Father in heaven. 

It was with this feeling that some Christians 
in a western state said to a gentleman who was 
going to the "White House on important business, 
" "We want you to ask Mr. Lincoln if he loves 
Jesus.'''' The gentleman visited Washington, 
had an interview with the President, and after 
his business was finished said : "At the solicita- 
tion of some Christian friends, I have a question 
to propose to you if you will allow me, Mr. Lin- 
coln." " Certainly," was the courteous reply. 
"Do you love Jesus ? " inquired the gentleman. 
The President burst into tears, buried his face 
in his handkerchief, and for a time was unable 
to speak. He at length said : " "When I left 
Springfield I said to my fellow-citizens, ' Pray 



The Forest Boy. 271 

for me ;' but I was not then a Christian. When 
my child died, soon after I entered upon my 
office, my heart was still rebellious against God. 
I was not then a Christian. But when I walked 
the battle-field of Gettysburg, and saw the 
wounded and the dying, and felt that by that 
victory our cause was saved, I then and there 
resolved, and gave my heart to Jesus. / do love 
Jesus." 

A lady of our acquaintance, with whom we 
conversed just before sitting down to write this 
page, says : " I was frequently brought into Mr. 
Lincoln's presence in reference to the soldiers of 
the hospitals for whom I was laboring, and I 
once asked him why he was not a member of 
some Church, as I believed he was a real 
Christian. He evaded the question, giving me 
a general answer, and intimated his great un- 
worthiness for such a solemn and responsible 
relation." The lady adds : " I always found 
Mr. Lincoln ready, and even pleased to converse 
upon the subject of experimental religion, but 
he was extremely modest respecting his own 



272 The Forest Boy. 

experience." As Mr. Lincoln was able to say 
sincerely that " he loved Jesus," it was a sad 
mistake, from whatever cause he was led into 
it, that he did not become a member of the 
Church and a receiver of the sacraments, thus 
confessing Christ before men, according to his 
commandment. If he had done so he might 
have been restrained, by the known sentiments 
of the Church, from attendance upon the thea- 
ter, where occasion was given for his violent 
death. 

But it is pleasanter to leave this subject to 
the Christian charity of those who have candidly 
studied Mr. Lincoln's religious character, and 
pass on to other evidences of his confidence in 
God and the Bible. 

During one of the darkest days of the rebel- 
lion, a delegation of Christian men called upon 
the President. " We trust the Lord is on our 
side," said the gentleman who spoke in their 
behalf. " I do not consider that as essential as 
something else," replied the President. The 
pious visitors looked surprised, until he added : 



The Forest Boy. 273 

"lam most concerned to know that we are on 
the Lord's side." 

The following illustrates Mr. Lincoln's love of 
the Bible, and his habit of reading it while he 
was President. It is related by the Rev. Mr. 
Adams, a Presbyterian clergyman of Philadel- 
phia. He was on a visit to Washington, and 
had made an appointment to call upon the 
President at the "White House at five o'clock 
in the morning. Says Mr. Adams : " Morning 
came, and I hastened my toilet, and found my- 
self at a quarter to five in the waiting room of the 
President. I asked the usher if I could see Mr. 
Lincoln. He said I could not. ' But I have an 
engagement to meet him this morning.' ' At 
what hour ? ' 'At five o'clock.' ' Well, sir, he 
will see you at five.' I then walked to and fro 
for a few moments, and hearing a voice, as if in 
grave conversation, I asked the servant, ' Who 
is talking in the next room ? ' ' It is the Pres- 
ident, sir.' ' Is anybody with him ? ' ' No, sir, 
he is reading the Bible.' ' Is that his habit so 
early in the morning ? ' ' Yes, sir ; he spends 



274 The Forest Boy. 

every morning from four to five in reading the 
Scriptures and praying.' " 

The central act of Mr. Lincoln's administra- 
tion, and, as he himself has said, " the great 
event of the nineteenth century," was the send- 
ing forth of the proclamation to emancipate the 
slaves. In the performance of this great duty 
he had constantly prayed that it might be in 
accordance with God's will. Just before it was 
done, a delegation of clergymen from Chicago 
called upon him to urge the speedy performance 
of the act. The President said to them : " I can 
assure you the subject is on my mind day and 
night, more than any other ; and whatever shall 
appear to be God's will 1 will do." 

At the cabinet meeting on the Saturday be- 
fore the proclamation was issued, Mr. Lincoln 
said in a low tone, after giving other reasons 
for it, " and I have promised God that I would 
do it." Secretary Chase, who was sitting near 
him, wishing to be sure that he understood him 
aright, said, " Did I understand you, Mr. Pres- 
ident ? " Mr. Lincoln replied, " I made a sol- 



The Forest Boy. 275 

emn vow before God, that if General Lee was 
driven back from Pennsylvania I would crown 
the result by the declaration of freedom to the 
slave." 

Once, when greatly perplexed by the difficul- 
ties which surrounded him, he exclaimed hope- 
fully to a distinguished senator, " The Lord has 
not deserted me thus far, and he is not going 
to now." 

A pious lady, who acted as a nurse to one of 
Mr. Lincoln's sick children, relates several inci- 
dents illustrating his religious feelings. At the 
news at one time of a sad defeat of the Union 
forces he was very much depressed, but said : 
" I have done the best I could. I have asked 
God to guide me, and now I must leave the 
event with him." 

On another occasion, when a great battle was 
in progress at a distant and important point, he 
manifested great solicitude. The lady remarked, 
" You can trust, and you can at least pray." 
" Yes," said he, in a tone which expressed the 
relief he felt in the suggestion, and taking up 



276 The Forest Boy. 

his Bible, started for his room. There, with 
God's word opened before him, he pleaded on 
his knees its gracious promises of support. So 
earnest were his supplications in his secret cham- 
ber that his voice was heard by those in the 
sick room of his family. While he yet prayed, 
God sent him the answer of peace. At one 
o'clock a telegram announced a Union victory. 
On receiving it, he came directly into the sick 
room, his face beaming with joy, exclaiming: 
" Good news ! good news ! The victory is ours, 
and God is good ! " 

"Nothing like prayer," suggested the pious 
lady. 

" Yes there is," replied Mr. Lincoln, " praise. 
Prayer and praise ! " 

A colored woman by the name of Johnson, 
of rare ability, earnest piety, and very many 
good works in the hospitals of the soldiers, in 
her ardent love for the President prepared as a 
present for him a magnificent collection of wax 
fruit. It was set upon a " stem-table " highly 
ornamented, and she proceeded, in company 



The Forest Boy. 277 

with her minister, to "Washington, to present it 
in person. She says : " The commissioner, Mr. 
Newton, received us kindly, and sent the box 
to the White House, with directions that it 
should not be opened until I came. The next 
day was reception day, but the President sent 
me word that he would receive me at one o'clock. 
I went and arranged the table, placing it in the 
center of the room. There I was introduced to 
the President and his wife. He stood next to 
me, then Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Newton, and the 
minister. Mr. Hamilton, the minister, made an 
appropriate speech, and at the conclusion said : 
' Perhaps Mrs. Johnson would like to say a 
few words.' I looked down to the floor and 
felt that I had not a word to say ; but after a 
moment or two the fire began to burn, and it 
burned and burned until it went all over me. 
I believe it was the Spirit ; and I looked up to 
him and said : ' Mr. President, I believe God 
has hewn you out of a rock for this great and 
mighty purpose. Many have been led away by 
bribes of gold, of silver, of presents ; but you 



278 The Forest Boy. 

have stood firm because God was with yon, and 
if you are faithful to the end God will be with 
you.' With his eyes filled with tears Mr. Lin- 
coln walked round and examined the present, 
pronounced it beautiful, thanked me kindly, and 
said : ' You must not give me the praise ; it all 
belongs to God.'' " 

A few months before the close of Mr. Lin- 
coln's earthly labors, two hundred members of 
the Christian Commission waited upon him at 
the White House. Mr. Stuart, chairman of the 
Commission, addressed a few words to him, re- 
ferring to the debt which the country owed him. 
" My friends," replied Mr. Lincoln, " you owe 
me no debt of gratitude for what I have done, 
and I," raising his arm and swinging it 
through the air, expressive of a desire to be un- 
derstood, " and I, I may say, owe you no grati- 
tude for what you have done ; just as, in a sense, 
we owe no gratitude to the men who have 
fought our battles for us. I trust that this has 
all been for us a work of duty." At the utter- 
ance of this word duty, Mr. Lincoln's sad face 



The Forest Boy. 279 

shone with a divine radiance, his whole soul 
seeming on fire with a spiritual baptism, while 
in eloquent language he gave God all the glory 
for the light which had dawned upon the Union 
cause, and for the prospect of a speedy and 
complete triumph. 

Mr. Stuart, catching fully the spirit of the 
occasion, said, " Mr. President, with your per- 
mission, we will have, here and now, a word of 
prayer." Mr. Lincoln assented with an ease 
and cordiality which showed that the sugges- 
tion fully accorded with his own feelings ; and 
Bishop Janes there, in the east room, led in a 
brief and fervent petition. 

Such are a few of the many incidents in 
Abraham Lincoln's public career, which show 
his habitual love for the Bible and his confi- 
dence in God. 



280 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE WHITE HOUSE HOME. 

The White House during Mr. Lincoln's presi- 
dency was, as we have seen, not a place barred 
to the outward world by embarrassing cere- 
monies, and repelling dignity of position. The 
family circle was reached by the known rules 
and simple courtesies of common life. We 
shall guard against breaking over these with 
obtrusive rudeness, while we seek a familiar 
acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln in his easy 
movements of intercourse with his family and 
confidential friends. It is here often that the 
springs are seen which give direction and 
force to public character, and here that a 
photograph may be taken of a man as he is, 
and not as he appears when dressed for the 
public observation. 

It was much easier for a person of Mr. Lin- 



The Forest Boy. 281 

coin's previous habits and natural frankness, to 
give the curious world a too ready access to his 
privacy, than to make any part of the White 
House at any time a genuine family home ; so it 
happens that his inner home life there is well 
understood. But even here he is most highly 
esteemed when best known. 

Mr. Lincoln was an early riser. The hour 
between four and five was devoted to the read- 
ing of the Bible and prayer, which furnished 
divine wisdom and strength for the duties of 
the day. The next two hours were generally 
devoted to an examination of the mail, with the 
aid of his private secretary, often giving his 
personal attention to letters from even the 
humblest sources. A visit to the War Office, or 
to his nearest chief military commander, fre- 
quently came in before, followed, or interrupted 
his "morning examination of the mails. A 
glance at the newspapers, too, was obtained 
during these two hours. 

Thus five hours were given to devotion and 
public business before breakfast, which was 

18 



282 The Forest Boy. 

eaten at nine. This was succeeded by weary 
hours of pressing business. At four he declined 
seeing company, and often took a carriage drive 
with some member of his family. The dinner 
at six was frequently one of generous hospitality 
to personal friends, and the evening hours fol- 
lowing were devoted to easy, informal, social 
intercourse. 

The above indicates only a very general 
disposition of the President's time, for his kind- 
ness of heart allowed numerous interruptions, 
so numerous, indeed, as to become sometimes 
more the rule than the exception. We have 
seen that his sleeping-room even was invaded 
at the midnight hour by friends imploring 
mercy for the condemned, and that the mo- 
ments devoted to rest and refreshment were 
relinquished at the cry of a babe and the peti- 
tion of its sorrowing mother. 

A member of Congress, and personal friend 
of Mr. Lincoln, thus speaks of him as he ap- 
peared in the family circle : " His intercourse 
with his family was beautiful as that with his 



The Forest Boy. 283 

friends. I think that father never loved his 
children more fondly than he. The President 
never seemed grander in my sight than when, 
stealing upon him in the evening, I would find 
him with a book open before him (as you have 
seen him in the popular photograph) and little 
" Tad " beside him. There were, of course, a 
great many very curious books sent to him, and 
it seemed to be one of the special delights of 
his life to open those books at such an hour 
that this boy could stand beside him, and they 
could talk as he turned over the pages, the 
father thus giving to the little fellow a portion 
of that care and attention of which he was or- 
dinarily deprived by the duties of office pressing 
upon him. 

This son Thomas, or " Tad," was an especial 
favorite with his father. He welcomed him to 
his presence, though engaged by pressing busi- 
ness or with distinguished personages. The 
presidential steamboat excursions down the 
Potomac were generally accompanied by Tad. 
At one time, while going to Fortress Monroe, 



284 The Forest Boy. 

the petted boy naturally abused his privilege of 
unrestrained access to his father, much to his 
annoyance, and the annoyance of the invited 
friends of the excursion. " Tad," said the 
President, whose conversation with the party 
he interrupted, " if you will be a good boy, and 
not disturb me any more till we get to Fortress 
Monroe, I will give you a dollar." The bribe 
served as a restraint for a while, but long before 
the boat reached the fort Tad was as noisy as 
ever ; but just before landing he confidently 
approached the President, saying, " Father, I 
want my dollar." His father turned, and, 
looking a tender reproof, said, " Tad, do you 
think you have earned it ? " " Yes," replied 
Tad boldly. Mr. Lincoln paused for a mo- 
ment, and cast at the lad a half reproachful 
glance; then, taking out his pocket-book, he 
handed him a dollar bill, saying, " Well, 
Tad, at any rate I will keep my part of the 
bargain." 

Tad at one time went over to the War Office, 
and the Secretary of War, indulging in the same 



The Forest Boy. 285 

humor toward the White House pet as the fa- 
ther, commissioned him "lieutenant." Tad, 
however, made a serious matter of his author- 
ity, and ordered a quantity of muskets to be 
sent to the house. At night he discharged the 
guards who were on duty at the executive man- 
sion, and, ordering up the gardeners and serv- 
ants, put guns into their hands, drilled them, 
and put them on duty in place of the guard. 
His elder brother, Captain Robert Lincoln, 
learning of Tad's audacity, reported the pro- 
ceedings to his father, requesting that they 
might be stopped. Mr. Lincoln, however, 
treated the aifair as a good joke, and refused 
to interfere. Fortunately for the weary la- 
borers, so unexpectedly made soldiers, the 
little officer in command of them presently 
went to bed, and they were quietly discharged. 
So the White House went unguarded that 
night, though surrounded by bitter and reck- 
less enemies. 

In February, 1862, Willie, Mr. Lincoln's son 
next older than Tad, died at the White House. 



286 The Foeest Boy. 

He is described as a remarkable boy, serious, 
mature above his years in intellect, and of an 
affectionate disposition. His sickness and death 
occurred at a time when Mr. Lincoln's public 
burdens were almost crushing. Tad was sick 
at the same time, and a pious lady from one of 
the hospitals was called in as nurse. Mr. Lincoln 
watched with her at the bedside of the children, 
and often walked the room, saying sadly, " This 
is the hardest trial of my life. "Why is it ? 
why is it ? " 

On the morning of Willie's funeral the lady 
said to him, " There are many Christians pray- 
ing for you this morning, Mr. Lincoln." He 
wiped away the tears from his eyes, and replied, 
" I am glad to hear that. I want them to pray 
for me. I need their prayers." As he was 
going out to the burial she again uttered words 
of sympathy. He thanked her in a tender 
manner, and replied, " I will try to go to God 
with my sorrows." A few days afterward she 
asked him if he could trust God. He answered, 
" I think I can, and I will try. I wish I had 



The Forest Boy. 287 

the childlike faith you speak of, and I trust he 
will give it to me." 

In this moment of bitter sorrow he remem- 
bered his mother, whose death had caused his 
first great grief, and spoke of her with deep 
emotion. " I remember her prayers," he said, 
" and they have always followed me. They 
have clung to me all my life." 

After the funeral of little Willie, which was 
on Thursday, Mr. Lincoln entered upon his 
public duties bowed down with grief, and 
seeming to be lost in its all-absorbing influence. 
The following Thursday it completely over- 
powered him, and he shut himself from all 
society. For several weeks the recurrence of 
Thursday was the occasion for throwing off all 
business, and indulgence in unrestrained grief. 
His case became alarming, and his friends 
sought every possible means of diverting his 
thoughts, and turning the current of his affec- 
tions. At this time Dr. Vinton, of Trinity 
Church, New York, happened to be visiting 
Washington. Some mutual friends invited 



288 The Forest Boy. 

him to the White House, and he was received 
in the parlor kindly by Mr. Lincoln. The doe- 
tor, having entered into conversation with him, 
tenderly chided him for so rebellious a spirit 
against the wise appointment of God. " Why," 
he added, "your son, Mr. Lincoln, is alive in 
paradise." Mr. Lincoln had listened as one 
whose mind was occupied with other thoughts 
until the words caught his ear, "your son is 
alive." Starting to his feet he exclaimed, 
" Alive ! alive ! Surely you mock me ! " 
" No, sir ; believe me," replied Dr. Vinton ; 
" it is a most comforting doctrine, founded upon 
the words of Christ himself." 

Mr. Lincoln looked for a moment inquiringly 
at the doctor, and then, stepping forward, 
threw his arms about his neck, and pillowing 
his head, with childlike simplicity, upon his 
breast, sobbed, " Alive ! alive ! " 

" My dear sir," replied Dr. Vinton, twining 
his arm around the weeping father, " believe 
this, for it is God's most precious truth." 

At Mr. Lincoln's request Dr. Vinton sent 



The Forest Boy. 289 

liira a copy of a sermon containing a more 
full statement of the truth which had so 
much comforted him. From this time the 
controlling power of the President's grief was 
broken, and the Thursday weeping was dis- 
continued. 



290 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE RAINBOW OF PEACE. 

"We cannot follow the history of Mr. Lincoln, 
nor understand fully his character, unless we 
glance, at least, at the great events in the 
country with which he stood so intimately 
connected. 

In the early summer of 1864, in the midst of 
the war, while immense armies were in the 
field, and a great navy was afloat, the question, 
Who shall be President after March 4, 1865 ? 
began to occupy a prominent place in the minds 
of the people. A convention met in Baltimore 
June 8, and said, It shall be Abraham Lincoln ; 
and when the people voted in November, 1861, 
more than two millions of the voters declared it 
should be Abraham Lincoln, giving him two 
hundred and twelve of the two hundred and 
thirty-three votes in the electoral college. The 



The Forest Boy. 291 

soldiers sent forth under the President to the 
field of danger and death, said by an almost 
unanimous vote, Give us again for president our 
good friend, Abraham Lincoln. A German 
soldier expressed the feelings of his companions 
in arms when he declared, in broken English, 
" I goes for Fader Abraham ; he likes the sol- 
dier boy. Yen he serves tree years he gives 
him four hundred dollar, and re-enlists him von 
veteran. Now, Fader Abraham, he serve four 
years. We re-enlist him for four years more, 
and make von veteran of him." 

Mr. Lincoln must, of course, have been grati- 
fied by his re-election. Not that he craved 
power and honor, but the election was his loyal 
countrymen's approval of his course. Mr. Car- 
penter, the painter, to whose recollections of Mr. 
Lincoln we have several times referred, says : 
"I watched him closely during the political 
excitement previous to the Baltimore Conven- 
tion, to see if I could discover signs of personal 
ambition, and I am free to say that, apart from 
the welfare of the country, there was no evi- 



292 The Forest Boy. 

dence to show to my mind that he ever thought 
of himself." 

When elected, he did not show a spirit of 
triumph. He said : " It is no pleasure to me 
to triumph over any one ; but I give thanks to 
the Almighty for this evidence of the people's 
resolution to stand by free government and the 
rights of humanity." 

His inaugural address on the 4th of March, 
1865, one of the last public acts of his life, 
closes with the following precious words'; words 
which will be admired more and more as they 
are repeated on the successive pages of history, 
and their true Christian spirit becomes more 
and more the spirit of the nations of the 
earth : 

" With malice toward none, with charity 
for all, with firmness in the right, as God 
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in, to bind up the 
nation's wounds, to care for him who hath 
borne the battle, and for his widow and 
orphans, to do all which may achieve and 



The Forest Boy. 293 

cherish just and lasting peace among ourselves 
and with all nations." 

While the people were thus looking after 
the continuance of right men in office, the 
noble armies of freedom were gaining vic- 
tories on every side over the armies of 
slavery. The brave men under Butler and 
Farragut at New Orleans, and under Grant 
and Porter at Vicksburg, and Banks at Port 
Hudson, had opened the Mississippi to the Gulf, 
free forever, and cut the Confederacy in twain. 
Sherman had marched South to Atlanta, and 
then swept across the country eastward until 
his army snuffed the breezes of the Atlantic, 
and caused the hasty abandonment of Savan- 
nah ; and then, after a brief pause, marched 
northward. toward Richmond, causing the proud 
and long-defiant cities of Charleston and Co- 
lumbia, with all the strongholds of rebellion 
in the Carolinas, to yield to the "stars and 
stripes." 

While Sherman thus triumphed, General 
Grant was breaking down the stubborn de- 



294 The Fobest Boy. 

fenses of Richmond, and hemming on every 
side the army of General Lee. 

On the 22d of March Mr. Lincoln reached 
City Point, on the James River. The rainbow 
of peace was faintly spanning the heavens, and 
he came to witness for himself the going down 
of the last dark cloud of the rebellion. Until 
Monday, April 3, he remained in his tent at 
City Point. As battle after battle was gained 
on well-fought and bloody fields, he tele- 
graphed the results to the country. The strain 
upon his nervous system was, of course, very 
great. The crisis had come at last ; the end of 
the long conflict seemed near, but the known 
uncertainty of war could not be banished from 
his mind. The Union soldiers were fighting 
with a sublime bravery, and being resisted with 
a stubborn ferocity. "Would victory pause now ? 
were there other lessons of humiliating defeat, 
and of patient waiting, necessary to prepare 
the nation for complete and final success? 
From the burden of such conflicting feelings 
Mr. Lincoln needed some relief, and he sought 



The Forest Boy. 295 

it in a way suited to his circumstances and 
peculiar temperament. 

There was a pet cat in his tent having a new- 
born family. During the painful pauses be- 
tween the battles, he diverted his mind by 
playing with them. On Monday morning, 
April 3, news came that the rebels had left 
Richmond, and that our forces were occupying 
the city. He started at the instant to go up 
the river, but turning round as he was about to 
leave the tent, he took up one of the kittens, 
saying, " Little kitten, I must perforin a last 
act of kindness for you before I go. I must 
open your eyes." Having passed his finger 
gently over the closed lids until the eyes were 
uncovered, he then put the kitten upon the 
floor, enjoying for a moment its surprise at 
the new world into which it had been intro- 
duced, and remarked pensively : " O that I 
could open the eyes of my blinded fellow- 
countrymen as easily as I have those of that 
little creature !" 

The Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a colored 



296 The Forest Boy. 

regiment, were the first pushed forward to learn 
certainly that the enemy had fled from Rich- 
mond. They dashed at full speed along the 
road from the north side of the James River, 
where they had been watching for this oppor- 
tunity, and entered the almost deserted streets 
of the city. The foe was sullenly retiring from 
the southern side at the same moment, the 
buildings were on fire in many places, and 
the fearful havoc of war was everywhere 
apparent. 

On the afternoon of the same day, April 3, 
Mr. Lincoln reached the city. On foot, with 
no guard except a few sailors, who had rowed 
him the last mile on the river, he landed from 
the boat and passed through several streets of 
the city. " Tad," accompanying, held timidly 
his father's hand as he gazed upon the strange 
sights. There were but few whites left in the 
city, and from them Mr. Lincoln could expect 
only a formal welcome. But the blacks were 
unbounded in their joy at his coming. They 
waved their handkerchiefs, tossed up their hats, 



The Forest Boy. 297 

and rent the air with shouts as hearty and sin- 
cere as were ever uttered. " Glory to God ! 
Glory! Glory! Glory!" were heard, mingled 
with the uproar of patriotic expressions. A 
colored woman, standing in her doorway, ex- 
claimed, as she saw the passing form of him 
who had doubtless been blessed with her hum- 
ble prayers, " I thank you, dear Jesus, that I 
behold President Linkum ! " Another ex- 
pressed her wild delight by jumping up and 
clapping her hands, exclaiming, " Bless de 
Lord ! Bless de Lord ! Bless de Lord ! " 

An aged negro pressed toward the President, 
and lifting his hat, while the tears rolled 
down his face, said, with a heart swelling with 
emotion, "May de good Lord bless you, Presi- 
dent Linkum ! " The President removed his 
own hat respectfully, and bowed his acknowl- 
edgement of the salutation. 

After a brief observation of the city, Mr. Lin- 
coln went back to City Point. On the follow- 
ing Thursday he returned, accompanied by 

Mrs. Lincoln. He then soon hastened away to 
19 



298 The Forest Boy. 

Washington. While he was absent, Mr. Sew- 
ard, the Secretary of State, had been seriously 
injured by an accident, and was now confined 
to his bed. Mr. Lincoln went directly to his 
house, and, after words of kind sympathy, he 
threw himself across the bed, and rehearsed the 
story of Grant's wonderful generalship, the 
bravery of the soldiers, their success, Rich- 
mond's fall, and the vigorous pursuit of Lee 
which was then going on. The President's 
face glowed with animated joy during this 
recital, and as he closed he started up, ex- 
claiming with intense emotion, " Now for a 
day of National Thanksgiving ? " 

Grant pursued Lee's flying and broken army 
with relentless vigor. On Monday, April 10, 
the telegram announced to the country his sur- 
render. The cup of the nation's joy seemed 
full. The noise of bells and cannon, and the 
wild shouts of the multitude, feebly expressed 
the emotions of the people. There were thanks- 
givings in devout hearts too deep for utterance, 
and praise which no words could express. God 



The Forest Boy. 299 

had triumphed gloriously, and his name was 
exalted in the land. There came, too, from 
grateful hearts the exclamations, "Abraham 
Lincoln," " Our beloved Lincoln," " Our noble 
President." The rainbow of peace was span- 
ning the heavens of our Republic. 



300 The Forest Boy. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE DARK CLOUD OF SORROW. 

The morning on which it was announced that 
Lee had surrendered, a crowd gathered in front 
of the White House. They had brought three 
bands of music ; but they wished to hear the 
music of the President's voice. He appeared at 
the window above the main entrance, and was 
greeted with enthusiastic shouts. He was in 
his happiest mood, but declined making a formal 
speech. He told them that he supposed arrange- 
ments were being made for a general demon- 
stration of joy to take place in a day or two, 
and that he should be expected to speak then, 
and added : " I shall have nothing to say if I 
dribble it out before. I propose now closing up 
by requesting you to play a certain air or tune. 
I have always thought ' Dixie ' one of the best 
tunes I ever heard. I have heard that our 



The Forest Boy. 301 

adversaries over the way have attempted to ap- 
propriate it as a national air. I insisted yester- 
day that we had fairly captured it. I presented 
the question to the Attorney General, and he 
gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize. I 
ask the band to give us a good tune upon it." 

Mr. Lincoln remained at the window while 
" Dixie " was being played, and then proposed 
three cheers for Lieutenant-General Grant and 
all our brave soldiers; these being given, he 
called for three more for " our gallant navy ;" 
he then bowed and retired. 

This was Monday, April 10, and in this 
cheerful frame of mind he answered all calls 
of duty and friendship until Friday, the 14th. 
To God he expressed, in public and private, the 
most devout gratitude, giving him the honor and 
glory of the victory. To his friends he uttered 
words of heartfelt congratulations. Toward 
the enemies of his country, now defeated and in 
his power, he breathed the spirit of forgiveness 
and conciliation ; and even intimated, in a pub- 
lic speech, a generous plan, already conceived, 



302 The Forest Boy. 

to restore them to legal and friendly relations 
with the government. 

Mrs. Lincoln, writing to Mr. Carpenter some 
months after her husband's death, thus speaks 
of his feelings during these days of national re- 
joicing, which proved to be the last of his own 
life : " How I wish you could have been with 
my dear husband the last three weeks of his 
life. Having a realizing sense that the unnatu- 
ral rebellion was near its close, and being the 
most of the time away from "Washington, where 
he had passed through such conflicts of mind 
during the last four years, feeling so encouraged 
he freely gave vent to his cheerfulness. Down 
the Potomac he was almost boyish in his mirth, 
and reminded me of his original nature as I 
remembered him in our own home, free from 
care, surrounded by those he loved. That ter- 
rible Friday I never saw him so supremely 
cheerful. His manner was even playful. At 
three o'clock he drove out with me in the open 
carriage. In starting I asked him if any one 
should accompany us. He immediately replied : 



The Forest Boy. 303 

'No, I prefer to ride by ourselves to-day.' 
During the drive he was so gay that I said to 
him laughingly, 'Dear husband, you almost 
startle me by your great cheerfulness ! ' He re- 
plied, ' And well I may feel so, Mary, for I 
consider this day the war has come to a close ;' 
and then added, ' We must be more cheerful in 
the future. Between the war and the loss of 
our darling "Willie we have been very miserable.' 
Every word he then uttered is deeply engraved 
on my poor broken heart." 

On Friday morning Mr. Lincoln sent to Ford's 
theater to engage a private box for the evening, 
to hear the play of " Our American Cousin." 
General Grant had arrived in "Washington the 
previous evening, and the theater managers an- 
nounced in the papers the expected attendance 
of the General and the President. General 
Grant did not wish to attend, and so left the 
city ; but Mr. Lincoln's mind, as his wife states 
in the letter from which we have quoted, " was 
fixed upon having some relaxation," though 
when the hour came he was disinclined to this 



304 The Forest Boy. 

kind of entertainment. He had, at long inter- 
vals, visited the theater to relieve an overbur- 
dened brain. Since his conversion on the bat- 
tle-field of Gettysburg, light concerning the sin- 
fulness of theatrical amusements had come to 
him but slowly, as it did to Christians fifty years 
ago in reference to drinking ardent spirits ; so, 
with tearful regrets, we must follow our beloved 
President to his dying chamber, through the 
theater. We feel sure that if he had lived un- 
der surrounding influences of less constraining 
power, or lived to greater maturity of religious 
experience, he would have sought relaxation in 
some way clearly consistent with his love for 
Jesus. 

The presidential carriage, containing, besides 
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, their friends, Major 
Rathbone and Miss Harris, arrived at the the- 
ater about nine o'clock. When the party entered 
the box the President was greeted by the audi- 
ence with prolonged cheers. He bowed his 
acknowledgements, and was soon quietly observ- 
ing the transactions upon the stage. 



The Forest Boy. 305 

While Mr. Lincoln was thus engaged, John 
Wilkes Booth, a stage-player, and the son of a 
stage-player, entered the theater. He gradually 
pushed his way through the crowd in the gal- 
lery in the rear of the dress-circle to the door of 
a narrow passage. Deceiving the servant who 
stood at the entrance, by showing a card and 
saying that the President had sent for him, he 
walked in, closed and barred the door. From 
this passage two doors opened into Mr. Lincoln's 
box. Stepping lightly to the further door, which 
stood ajar, he shut and fastened it. He then 
went back and took a hasty glance through a 
hole which had been previously bored for the 
purpose in the first door, and learned the posi- 
tion of the persons within. Mr. Lincoln was 
nearest the assassin and only about four feet 
from him, sitting so as to expose to his view the 
back and left side of his head. Booth thrust 
his arm into the entrance, leveled his pistol, and 
fired. The ball entered the brain of the Presi- 
dent, who, dropping his head on his breast, and 
falling slightly forward, remained perfectly still. 



306 The Forest Boy. 

Booth rushed into the midst of the amazed 
company and shouted " Freedom." Major 
Kathbone, in attempting to seize him, received 
a deep wound upon the arm from a dagger. 
The assassin then dashed over the front of the 
box, down twelve feet upon the stage. As he 
fell his spurs became entangled in the folds of 
an American flag, and brought him suddenly 
to the floor with a fractured leg. Springing to 
his feet, he flourished his dagger, and in a the- 
atrical tone uttered the insulting cry, " Sic sem- 
per tyrannis" adding, " The South is avenged." 
In the confusion he fled across the stage and 
through the windings in the rear of the theater, 
mounted a fleet horse in waiting, and hastened 
away. He forgot that if he " should take the 
wings of the morning and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea," and if he should say 
" Surely the darkness shall cover me," that 
there was One to whom "the night shineth 
as the day," whose hand should lead him, 
and whose right hand should hold him. In a 
few days he was pursued by the officers of 



The Forest Boy. 307 

justice, and, in his attempt to resist them, shot 
dead ! 

Mr. Lincoln was tenderly carried to a house 
opposite the theater, but he had no conscious- 
ness, uttered no word, and felt no pain. He 
gradually sunk into the arms of death, and ex- 
pired the next morning at twenty-two minutes 
past seven. He was surrounded by the great 
men of the nation, who bowed in grief and 
wept like children. Mrs. Lincoln lay in an ad- 
joining room, supported in her agony by her 
oldest son and other friends. 

While these dreadful scenes were passing at 
the theater, a ruffian by the name of Lewis 
Payne Powell, in league with Booth and others, 
forced his way into the sick chamber of Mr. 
Seward, the Secretary of State, mounted his 
bed and stabbed him three times with a dagger. 
He would no doubt have killed him, but a sol- 
dier by the name of Robinson, who was acting 
as nurse to Mr. Seward, seized the murderer 
around the body while his intended victim 
rolled himself off the bed. Powell rushed down 



308 The Forest Boy. 

stairs and out of the house, having in entering 
and returning stabbed five persons, and knocked 
dovrn and stunned with the butt of a pistol 
one of Mr. Seward's sons. Powell was after- 
ward arrested, tried and hanged, as were three 
others who aided in the plot, one of them a 
woman. 

Mr. Seward finally recovered, but for a long 
time lay in a critical situation. His physician 
had kept from him all knowledge of what had 
happened at the theater. A few days after, he 
had his bed wheeled round so that he could see 
the tops of the trees in the park opposite. His 
eye instantly caught the stars and stripes at 
half mast on the "War Department. He gazed 
in silence and sadness for a moment, and then, 
turning to an attendant, said, " The President 
is dead ! " The attendant was confused and 
silent, while the Secretary added : " If he had 
been alive he would have been the first to call 
on me ; but he has not been here, nor has he 
sent to know how I am, and there's the flag at 
half mast." He then gazed again in silence at 



The Forest Boy. 300 

the flag, while the tears flowed freely down his 
gashed cheeks. 

The body of the President was carried, a few 
hours after his death, to a room in the White 
House, where it was embalmed. On Tuesday 
the doors were opened to the public, and it is 
believed twenty-five thousand persons went in to 
view the face so familiar to them once, and now 
so pale in death. The rich and the poor came, 
the white and the black, dropping their tears 
together upon his coffin. Hundreds, as they 
pressed past, casting a hasty glance at the face 
so often lighted up with expressions of com- 
passion for the oppressed, uttered a word or a 
sentence of deep-felt affection. 

Wednesday was the day of the funeral. 
There was first sen-ice in the east room of the 
executive mansion, and then the remains were 
removed to the rotunda of the Capitol. It was 
followed by a long procession, and witnessed by 
a vast multitude of people. Numerous martial 
bands sent forth their tender strains of music. 
The minute guns of the adjacent forts joined in 



310 The Forest Boy. 

deep-toned unison. The country's flag, at half 
mast, drooped in pensive sadness. 

At the same hour of the service at the 
rotunda, the churches all over the loyal states 
were opened for religious worship. The dra- 
pery of mourning was everywhere displayed, 
and sorrow was depicted on every face. 



The Forest Boy. 311 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE BURIAL — BENEDICTIONS — FAREWELL. 

After the funeral service at Washington, the 
remains of the President were borne toward 
their western resting-place. Accompanied by 
the dust of his " darling Willie," they started on 
their long journey on the 21st of April. When 
the train arrived at Baltimore, where, four years 
before, the living President barely escaped the 
hand of violence, a great multitude were moved 
to affectionate demonstrations of grief at the 
sight of his bier and cold clay. At Harrisburgh 
the remains were exposed to view in the state 
capitol, and for many hours were surrounded 
by the weeping people. 

When the approach of the funeral train to 
Philadelphia was announced, the whole city was 
moved at its coming. A new hearse had been 
prepared to receive the body, drawn by eight 



312 The Foeest Boy. 

black horses in silver-mounted harness. It was 
carried to Independence Hall, where it lay from 
Saturday evening until Monday morning. Dur- 
ing nearly every hour of this time it was visited 
by the people. Individuals falling into the 
human current, which constantly poured through 
the hall, were borne slowly along for four or five 
hours before their eyes rested upon the pale face 
of him for whom they grieved. They left be- 
hind them tears and flowers, the tokens of their 
pity and love. 

When the remains reached the city of New 
York, its mighty din of business was at once 
hushed. The tolling of bells and minute guns 
faintly expressed the sorrow of its people. Im- 
mense throngs were in the streets to testify in 
person their interest in the mournful occasion. 
Thousands patiently endured the pressure of the 
long, densely packed line, which moved slowly, 
hour after hour, toward the City Hall, where the 
corpse lay in state. The high in office, name, 
and influence, united with the humble poor in 
following its departure from the city, and fifteen 



The Foeest Boy. 313 

thousand citizen soldiers escorted the solemn 
procession. 

At Albany and Buffalo, and through the long 
railroad route between those cities, the people's 
mourning was repeated. A reporter who fol- 
lowed the train wrote : " A funeral in each 
house in Central New York would hardly have 
added solemnity to the day." As the honored 
dead passed on every city had its tribute of 
sorrow. At Chicago the mourning began to 
be still more like the mourning of a house- 
hold over its fallen head. The whole state of 
Illinois had in days past yielded to the political 
moulding of Mr. Lincoln's wonderful influence, 
and now its heart throbbed with the universal 
sorrow. 

When the remains had arrived at Springfield, 
and were deposited in the State-house, they 
seemed to have returned to a part of his own 
family from which he had been long separated. 
Many of his early and endeared friends there 
had not seen him since he requested their pray- 
ers, and waved them an affectionate adieu from 
20 



314 The Forest Boy. 

the platform of the cars which bore him toward 
the White House. 

The nation's honored dead reached its final 
resting-place May 4. It is a beautiful spot at 
Oak Ridge Cemetery, about two miles from 
Springfield. The dust of " Little Willie," 
who was so much loved in life, and incon- 
solably mourned in death, was laid beside his 
father's. A prayer was offered, a hymn sung, 
a portion of the Scriptures read, an eloquent 
eulogy delivered by Bishop Simpson, the 
benediction pronounced, and the multitude 
melted slowly away, leaving the dead in sol- 
emn quiet. 

While thus the whole nation was bowed with 
grief, none mourned more sincerely than those 
whom Mr. Lincoln had delivered from slavery. 
"We have lost our President," was the uni- 
versal feeling. The following statements and 
incident, given by a correspondent of the New 
York Tribune, writing from Charleston, South 
Carolina, illustrates this fact : " I never saw 
such sad faces nor heard such heavy heart-beat- 



The Forest Boy. 315 

ings as here in Charleston the day the dreadful 
news came. The colored people, the native 
loyalists, were like children bereaved of an only 
and beloved parent. I saw one old woman 
going up the street, wringing her hands, and 
saying aloud as she walked, looking straight 
before her, so absorbed in her grief that she 
noticed no one : 

" ' O Lord ! O Lord ! O Lord ! Massa Sam's 
dead! Massa Sam's dead! O Lord! Massa 
Sam's dead ! ' 

" ' Who's Massa Sam ? ' I asked. 

" ' Uncle Sam,' she said ; < O Lord ! O Lord ! ' 

" I was not quite sure she meant the Presi- 
dent, and said again : 

" ' Who's Massa Sam, Aunty ? ' 

" ' Mr. Linkum,' she answered, and resumed 
wringing her hands, and moaning in utter 
hopelessness and sorrow. The poor creature 
was too ignorant to comprehend the difference 
between the very unreal Uncle Sam and the 
actual President ; but her heart told that he 
whom heaven had sent in answer to her prayers 



316 The Forest Boy. 

was lying in a bloody grave, and she and her 
race were left— fatherless" 

The news of Mr. Lincoln's death carried sor- 
row wherever it was published. 

A distinguished minister of Montreal says in 
a memorial sermon : " On Wednesday last a 
funeral took place in Washington which closed 
the law courts, banks, and places of business in 
this chief city of British America ; invested our 
streets with subdued silence ; called out visible 
tokens of mourning; and opened halls and 
churches, where words of sorrow and sympathy 
might find utterance. All this was sponta- 
neous. It was the spontaneous tribute of re- 
spect to the memory of the late President of 
the United States." 

When the news of the assassination reached 
England, the excitement, the indignation and 
sorrow, were intense. A prominent paper de- 
clared that the people in the streets of London 
would have treated Booth as roughly, had he 
been in their power, as any in New York 
or Washington. The London "Times' 1 and 



The Forest Boy. 317 

"Punch," which had wounded Mr. Lincoln 
when wounds were the most keenly painful, 
hastened to lay a wreath upon his coffin. Pub- 
lic demonstrations of sorrow were attended by 
immense multitudes. The Parliament signed 
an address of condolence, and presented it to 
the American minister. The Queen wrote a 
letter to Mrs. Lincoln with her own hand, in 
which her sorrow and sympathy were ex- 



The startling tidings were received in Paris 
with universal and deep grief. The emperor 
sent an officer of his household to the American 
minister with assurance of his sympathy. Prot- 
estant religious bodies, popular assemblies, and 
literary associations, passed earnest resolutions 
in reference to the sad event. Two thousand 
young men of the Latin quarter of Paris at- 
tempted to go in a body to the United States 
legation, to utter, through a chosen spokesman, 
words of tenderness for the noble dead ; but 
they were hindered by the jealous police, and 
only a few reached it to deliver the message. 



318 The Forest Coy. 

A few hours after the sad news was pub- 
lished in Paris, its Sunday-schools were holding 
a general meeting in a capacious circus build- 
ing having seats for four thousand persons, all 
of which were filled. ■ The chairman rose and 
said : " My children, I had prepared a little 
speech for you, but a horrible fact has just been 
related to me. The President of the United 
States is dead. Abraham Lincoln has been 
assassinated ! " He then sat down, too full of 
emotion to say more. Several of the ladies 
burst into tears. An American gentleman 
whispered to one of them, and inquired if she 
was an American lady. She replied, " No, I 
am French ; but I have followed Mr. Lin- 
coln's course from the beginning of the war, 
and feel as if his death were a personal af- 
fliction." 

As the telegrams announced throughout 
Europe the dreadful deed, governments and 
people paused, and uttered words of amaze- 
ment and lamentation. A recent traveler says 
that even Palestine, and more distant parts of 



The Forest Boy. 319 

Asia, heard the name of Lincoln, and lamented 
his fall. The islands of the ocean, too, caught 
the flying sorrow. At the Sandwich Islands 
memorial sermons were preached, and churches 
were draped. The mourning of America be- 
came the mourning of the world. And this 
was right, for Abraham Lincoln lived and 
died to promote the freedom of universal 
humanity. 

The story of our beloved Lincoln carries with 
it its own instructive lesson, and enforces it too. 
From the log-cabin to the White House, it is 
a story of truthfulness, temperance, love, 
unselfish labor, and large-hearted benevolence. 
Abraham the boy learned from his mother's 
lips to fear God and reverence the Bible, and 
he never departed from her instruction. 

Abraham Lincoln, the man, never tired of 
labor, reading, and thought. But he read but 
little and thought much. Mr. Herndon, for 
twenty years his law partner, says, " He read 
less and thought more than any man of his 
standing in America, if not in the world." 



320 The Forest Boy. 

Abraham Lincoln, the politician, despised 
trickery. At the threshold of high position, 
honor, and power, he was willing to lose 
all rather than give a bribe to those who 
claimed to keep the door. When challenged 
he paused, and indignantly exclaimed : " I 
authorize no bargains, and will be bound by 
none." 

As President he exercised more than a mon- 
arch's power with wisdom and purity. "When 
he unconsciously approached the time of his 
instant death, he had an increasing assurance 
that he loved Jesus. 

Cordially we unite with the eloquent Bishop 
Simpson, and say : 

" Chieftain, farewell ! The nation mourns 
thee. Mothers shall teach thy name to their 
lisping children. The youth of our land shall 
emulate thy virtues. Statesmen shall study tin- 
record, and learn lessons of wisdom. Mute 
though thy lips be, yet they still speak. 
Hushed is thy voice, but its echoes of liberty 
arc ringing through the world, and the sons of 



The Forest Boy. 321 

bondage listen with joy. Prisoned thou art in 
death, and yet thou art marching abroad, and 
chains and manacles are bursting at thy touch. 
Thou didst fall not for thyself. The assassin 
had no hate for thee. Our hearts were aimed 
at, our national life was sought. We crown 
thee as our martyr, and humanity enthrones 
thee as her triumphant son. Hero, Martyr, 
Friend, farewell ! " 



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